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IMPRESSIONS 


OF 


ENGLAND; 


OR, 


•{ifttljfs of (Unglislj jjcmrj anfo jiotkfg. 


A 




BY 


A/CLEVELAND C 0 X E, 

n 

RECTOR OF GRACE CHURCH, BALTIMORE. 


When I travelled I saw many things; and I understand more than I can express. 

Ecclus. xxxiv. 11. 


FIFTH EDITION. 


) > 

3 > > 

PIi/laDELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

1863 . 


(obS 

, 0 * 7 ^ 

\ B63 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, 

By DANA & COMPANY* 

fri the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of New York. 


96 

JAN 261945 

Serial Record Division 
The Library of Congress 


THE REV. JOSEPH OLDKNOW, M. A., 


OF CHRIST’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, 

PERPETUAL CURATE OF HOLY TRINITY CHAPEL, 

BORDESLEV. BIRMINGHAM. 

IN GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP, 

AND AS A MEMORIAL 

OF HAPPY DAYS AND NIGHTS AT BORDESLEY, 

I DEDICATE THESE SKETCHES. 

A. C. C 


Baltimore , 1855, 



PREFACE. 


The following sketches pre-suppose, on the part of the 
reader, a familiarity with English subjects, and with the 
geography, history and literature of England. The writer 
has endeavored to avoid the common-places of travel, and has 
made no allusion to topics which are generally understood, 
such as the petty annoyances one meets at hotels, and the cold- 
ness and phlegm of fellow-travellers. He has also forborne 
to dwell on the greater evils of English society, because 
these have been thoroughly discussed and exposed, as well 
by Englishmen as by foreigners. Besides, our countrymen 
are kept constantly in view of that side of the matter, and 
there would be no relish of novelty to excuse him for 
treating them afresh to whole pages made up of the un- 
trustworthy statistics of Dissenting Almanacs, and the rant 
of Irish members of Parliament. Although English trav- 
ellers have often dealt unfairly with us, he prefers to show 
his dislike of such examples, by forbearing to imitate them. 
Nor does he regard a different course as due to his love of 
country. A clergyman who devotes his life to the holiest 
interests of his native land, and who daily thinks, and 
prays, and toils, and exhorts others, in behalf of her wants 
— alike those which are purely religious and those which 


VI 


PREFACE. 


pertain to letters, to education and to society in general — 
may surely excuse himself from vociferous professions of 
patriotism. He freely avows his love of country to be 
consistent with a perception of her faults and deficiencies, 
and mainly to consist in a high appreciation of her many 
advantages ; in a sense of responsibility for the blessings 
of which she has made him partaker ; and in a studious 
desire always to remember what is due to her reputation, 
so far as his humble share in it may be concerned. Whether 
at home or abroad, he would endeavour so to act as never 
to disgrace her ; but he cannot sympathize with the sort 
of patriotism which rejoices in the faults of other countries, 
or which travels mainly to gloat over them. Least of all, 
can he share in any petty comparisons of ourselves 
with our mother country. If there be Englishmen who 
take any pleasure in our defects, he is sorry for their nar- 
rowness ; if any American finds satisfaction in this or that 
blemish of English society, he cannot comprehend it. He 
considers a sacred alliance between the two countries emi- 
nently important to mankind ; and he who would peril 
such interests, for the sake of some trivial matter of per- 
sonal pride, must be one of the most pitiable specimens 
of human nature, be he American or Briton. 

He has aimed, therefore, to present his countrymen with 
a record of the pleasures which travel in England may 
afford to any one pre-disposed to enjoy himself, and able to 
appreciate what he sees. He confesses, also, that he has 
tho rather confined himself to an exhibition of the bright 
side of the picture, because he fears that many of his 
countrymen are sceptical as to r its existence. He suspects 
that Americans too commonly go to England prepared to 
dislike it, and soon cross the channel determined to be 
happy in France. 


PREFACE. 


vii 


As a great measure of his own enjoyment depended 
upon the fact, that he mingled freely with English society, 
he thinks it proper to say that he owed his introductions 
chiefly to a few English friends with whom he had cor- 
responded for years beforehand. He supplied himself 
with very few introductions from his native land, and 
even of these he presented only a part ; and in accepting 
civilities he was careful to become indebted for them, 
only when he had a prospect of being able, in some 
degree, to return them. As the inter-communion of the 
Churches tends to make the interchange of hospitalities 
more frequent, he was the rather desirous in nothing to 
presume on the good-will at present existing ; the abuse 
of which will certainly defeat the ends for which it has 
been so generously promoted. 

Having given years to the study of the British Consti- 
tution, and to the Literature and Religion of England, he 
has for a long time been accustomed to watch its politics, 
and its public men. He has, therefore, spoken of several 
public characters, both Whigs and Tories, in a manner 
which their respective admirers will hardly approve, but, as 
he believes, without prejudice, and as a foreigner may do, 
with more freedom than a fellow-subject. In such expres- 
sions of personal opinion he has given an independent judg- 
ment, and he is very sure that many of his English friends 
will be sorry to see some of his criticisms on their leading 
statesmen. It is but just to them to say, that in remarks 
on the Sovereign, and her amiable Consort, the writer has 
spoken entirely for himself, and with a freedom, in which 
their loyalty and affection never allow them to indulge. 
He believes that an impartial posterity will, nevertheless, 
sustain the views with respect to political matters which 
he has expressed, and he considers it part of the duty 


viii 


PREFACE. 


of a traveller, in detailing his impressions, to be frank on 
such subjects, in avowing “ how it strikes a stranger.” 

He desires also to confess another purpose, in preparing 
and publishing this little work. He has aimed to present, 
prominently, to his readers, the distinguishing and char- 
acteristic merits of English civilization. Innumerable 
causes are now at work to debase the morals of our own 
countrymen. With the contemporaries of Washington, 
that high social refinement which was kept up amid all 
the evils of our colonial position, has well-nigh passed 
away. The dignity of personal bearing, the careful civil- 
ity of intercourse, and the delicate sense of propriety which 
characterized the times of our grandfathers, have disap- 
peared. The vulgarizing influences of a dissocial sectari- 
anism are beginning to be perceived. The degrading 
effects of sudden wealth ; the corruptions bred of luxury ; 
the evils of a vast and mongrel immigration ; and not 
least, the vices communicated to our youth, by contact 
with the Mexican and half- Spanish populations contiguous 
to our southern frontier ; all these corrosive elements are 
operating among us with a frightful and rapid result. The 
contrast with such tendencies, of the sober and compara- 
tively healthful progress of society in our ancestral land, 
the writer supposes, cannot but be acceptable at least to 
those of his countrymen who deprecate this deterioration, 
and who, for themselves and their families, are anxious to 
cultivate an acquaintance with those domestic, educational 
and religious institutions which have given to England 
her moral power and dignity among the nations of the 
civilized world. 

These sketches were originally contributed to the New- 
York Church Journal , but are here given in a revised and 
complete form. They are a record of the memorable year 


PREFACE. 


ix 


1851 — a year to which English history will look hack as 
the last, and the full-blown flower of a long peace. The 
revival of the imperial power in France, at the close of 
that year, has opened a new era in Europe, the effects 
of which upon the British Empire can hardly be foreseen. 


Baltimore , 1855. 


A. C. 0. 




TABLE OF CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER I. 

Holyhead — Incidents of the Voyage — Oxford stage-coach and Stratford 
guide-post — Easter-bells and Easter solemnities — An Elizabethan Mansion — 
A Roger-de-Coverley picture in real life — A Fancy Chapel — An old fashioned 
Vicarage. 


CHAPTER II. 

Aspect of a Cathedral-town — Litchfield Cathedral, its injuries and restora- 
tions — St. Chad, and Stowe-Church — Lord Brooke, his sacrilege and retri- 
bution — Dr. Johnson and his penance — The Three-Crowns Inn — Evening 
Service at the Cathedral — A Midland-county custom. 


CHAPTER III. 

Brummagem Bishops — American oak in King Edward’s School — New- 
England in Deritend — Oscott — Italian Catholicity — Pugin and the Papists— 
The Oratory and Mr. Newman — An Oratorian Sermon — Romish Methodism. 


CHAPTER IV. 

Scene at a London Railway Station — A drive to Pall-Mall — Whitehall and 
Hungerford Bridge — The new Bishop of Lincoln — The S. P. G. House — 
Nell Gwynne — Westminster Abbey — The Jerusalem Chamber — Lord John 
Tliynnc — The Coronation Vestments. 


CONTENTS. 


xii 


CHATTER V. 

Historic Scenes in Westminster Hall — The Scene it presents in our days 
— The New Palace and Victoria Tower — The silent Highway — Lambeth 
Palace — Chelsea, and Martin the painter — Whitehall Palace and Garden — 
Oratorio at Chelsea — Sara Coleridge and other members of the poet’s family. 


CHAPTER VI. 

Bury Street, St. James — The Lungs of London — Riding in Rotten-Row — 
First view of the Crystal-palace — The venerable S. P. G. — The Bishop of 
Oxford — First glimpse of Oxford — Cuddesdon Palace — A Sermon at St. 
Ebbe’s — A country Church — Bishop Lowth’s Epitaph on his daughter. 


CHAPTER VII. 

Forest-hill — A walk in the country — Miltonian scenery — Mary Powell’s 
birth-place — A dame’s School — Milton’s Well — A neat-handed Phillis — 
Elucidations on the spot — Sir William Jones. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

Oxford — William of Wykeham — New College and its Gardens — Magda- 
len — Addison’s Walk — Scene in the Convocation-house — May-morning 
hymn on Magdalen Tower — Scenery of the surrounding country — Morning 
bells and a walk in the College-grounds. 


CHAPTER IX. 

The Queen’s Progress to the Crystal-palace — The mob in the Park The 

Queen’s return — Her appearance at Buckingham Palace — Americans at a 
discount — The interior view of the Great Exhibition — A high-priced day and 
a low-priced day — The end of the bubble — Jack in the Green. 


CONTENTS. 


xiii 


CHAPTER X. 

The Chapel Royal of St. James — The Duke of Wellington at his prayers 
— The Sermon — The Duke at the Holy Communion — St. Paul’s Cathedral — 
How it compares with St. Peter’s — Effect of the Choral Service — Dean Mil- 
man — St. Barnabas’, Pimlico, and its Mediae valisms — Fashion at St. George’s 
— The Bishop of Nova-Scotia. 


CHAPTER XI. 

Ramblings in London — All-hallows, Barking — First view of the Tower — 
The Sovereigns on horseback — Historical relics — The Armada and its cargo 
— The block and the axe — The jewel-room — Laud and Strafford — Prison- 
ers’ inscriptions — The graves in the Tower-Chapel — The Traitors’ gate. 


CHAPTER XII. 

House of Commons — Message from the Lords — D’lsraeli — Lord John — 
The Speaker — The Abbey and Whitehall at dead of night — The Papal Ag- 
gression — The course of the Whigs with the Papists — The Irish Brigade — 
Lord John and D’lsraeli in a personal debate — Feebleness of Ministerial 
measures. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

Decorations of the House of Lords — Their wholesome moral — The future 
of the new Chamber — The Aristocracy — Manners in Parliament — The Lord 
Chancellor Truro — The London Police — Their impartiality. 


XIV 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

Exhibitions of Art — Westminster Bridge — Lambeth — A wherry on the 
River — Temple Gardens and Church — Twelfth-Night — To the ball on the 
dome of St. Pau ’s — Descent to the Crypts — Nelson’s Tomb — The Thame. 
Tunnel — Shipping. 


CHAPTER XV. 

The Cries of London — Covent Garden Market — The Savoy — St. Clement 
Danes and Dr. Johnson — Anecdote of Johnson at Temple-bar — Lincoln’s 
Inn — Heralds’ College — The Times — The Old Bailey — A Trial for Murder — 
A Visit to the Dead — Milton’s Grave — Grub-street — Chaucer’s Tabard 


CHAPTER XVI. 

Charms of Society in London — The London Season — Breakfast-parties— 
Dining out — Children at the Dessert — Evening-parties — Historical Costumes 
— A literary party at Lady Talfourd’s — Influence of high refinement on in li- 
vidual character — Pronunciation — A breakfast at Samuel Rogers’. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

Exeter College, Oxford — A Sunday at Oxford — Common-room of Oriel — 
Visit to Nuneham Courtenay — Parish-school — Society in Oxford — Life of 
an Oxonian Fellow — A visit to Dr. Routh — Relics of Laud — Oxford Mar- 
tyrs — Libraries and Museum — Chapel of Merton — A boat-race. 


CONTENTS. 


XV 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

Iffley Church — Radley, and a walk through Bagley wood — Making a Doc- 
tor of Divinity — A drive through the country — Parish-stocks — Incidents of 
the journey — Old villages — Descent into the Vale of Gloucester — A picture 
in real scenery. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

Worcester Cathedral — Coaching to Malvern — Great and Little Malvern — 
Tewksbury — Wars of the Roses — Bredon — Sunday at Kemerton — May’s 
Hill — The Cuckoo — Gloucester — The Church at Highnam — Architectural 
beauty of Gloucester Cathedral — Effect in twilight. 


CHAPTER XX. 

The Old Palace of St. James — Preparations for going to Court — The 
procession of carriages — The Presentation — The Queen and Prince A lbert — 
A drawing-room — The Ladies — Decorations of the royal apartments — Por- 
traits in the Corridor — Reflections. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

A visit to Harrow Weald — Ascension Day — Oak-leaves in honor of the 
Restoration — Cricket — Evening Service, and a remarkable Sermon — Coven- 
try — Peeping Tom and Lady Godiva — Kenilworth — The ruins — Guy’s 
Cliff— Piers Gaveson— Warwick Castle. 


rri 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER XXII 

Stratford-upon-Avon — The Red-Horse Inn — Geoffrey Crayon — The Birth- 
place of Shakspeare— New-Place— Walk to Shottery— The Churchyard— 
The Church and Tomb — The Epitaph of Shakspeare’s daughter — Influence 
of the Church on the mind of Shakspeare. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

Nottingham — Lord Byron’s reputation — The Castle — Derby — The Wyo 
— Haddon Hall — Gallery — Chapel — Chatsworth — Matlock-Bath — Shrews- 
bury — A Sedan-chair — Welsh Emigrants — Chester — Eaton-Hall. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

St. Winifred’s Well — The Vale of Clwyd — Rhuddlan — St. Asaph — A 
Welsh Inn — Welsh hospitality — The Welsh service in a rural Church — The 
Holy Clerk of Llanerch — Mrs. Hemans — St. Mary’s Well — Conway Castle 


CHAPTER XXV. 

Bangor — Menai Straits, and a Trip to Caernarvon — Llanberis and Dolbardan 
— Caernarvon Castle — The Eagle tower — Nant Ffrancon — Capel Curig — Cor- 
wen — Valle Crucis — Llangollen — Miss Ponsonby and Lady Eleanor Butler 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

Gypsies — The Man of Ross — Market day — Monmouth — Tintern Abbey in 
a storm — A Vicar’s children — The Wind-cliff — Tintern in sunshine — The 
Severn — Clifton, Bristol and St. Mary Redcliffe — Chattcrton — Bristol Ca- 
thedral — Mrs. Mason's tomb — A dissenting minister — His charity. 


CONTENTS. 


xvii 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

Glastonbury — King Arthur’s coffin — Restorations at Wells — Ordination 
at Bradfield — Solemnities of the Jubilee — Willis’s Rooms — A Centenarian 
— Speeches at St. Martin’s Hall — The Archbishop in his Study — The Jubi- 
lee Sermons — Samuel Warren. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Jubilee-service at the Cathedral — A Lord Mayor’s Feast — Lord Glenelg— 
Eton College — St. George’s Chapel and Windsor Castle — A Dame’s House 
A swim in the Thames — Hampton Court — Pictures and Cartoons — Hurs- 
lcy Church, and the Poet Keble — Winchester School — St. Cross Hospital — 
Relics. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

Winchester Cathedral — Wykeham and Waynefletc — Cardinal Beaufort — 
Bishop Fox — Stephen Gardiner — The Altar — Reliquary chests — Izaak Wal- 
ton — An American Vicar — His ingenuities — Salisbury Plain and Stonehenge 
— George Herbert — Netley Abbey — The Isle of Wight — Portsmouth — Chi- 
chester — B r ighton . 


CHAPTER XXX. 

St. Augustine’s, Canterbury — Queen Bertha’s Church — The Patriarchal 
Cathedral — Becket — The Black Prince — Archbishop Howley — The Dane 
John— Drive to Borne— The Judicious Hooker— One of the Squirearchy— 
Rochester — Westminster Archives — Chapel of Henry VII. — Grave ot Addi- 
son— British Museum— Richmond Hill— Thomson’s grave— Pope’s skull. 


xviii 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

The Encaenia at Oxford — The uproar — Bedford and JohnBunyan — Fourth 
of July— The gates of Caius — Comparison of the two Universities — Chan- 
cellor Albert — Old Hobson — The Isthmus of Sues — Milton’s Mulberry — The 
small Colleges — The Fitzwilliam — King’s College— Trinity. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

Ely Cathedral — Its beautiful restorations — Peterborough — The graves of 
two Queens — A King of Spades — Lincoln and Bishop Grostete — The Ca- 
thedral — Jews’ House — The City of Constantine — York Minster — Ripon — 
Fountains’ Abbey — Durham — The Bishop of Exeter — The University — 
Newcastle — Amen Corner. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 


Return from Scotland — Gretna Green — Carlisle — The Lakes — Windermere 
— Dr. Arnold’s enthusiasm — An American Sunday and an English one — 
Grassmere — A Poet’s Widow — A walk to Keswick — Cockney rhetoric — Der- 
wentwater — A poet’s sepulchre — Penrith — The Countess’ Pillar — Dotheboys 
Hall — Rokeby — Kirkstall Abbey. 


CHAPTER XXXIY. 

A pilgrimage to Olney — Cowper’s services to Literature — Anti-Snobbery 
— Cowper’s pedigree — A lace-maker — Olney bridge — The Summer-house — 
Weston-Underwood — The Wilderness — Cowper’s Autograph and Adieu — 
The Greek Slave — White-bait at Greenwich — The prime meridian — The 
pensioners — Good-night. 


CONTENTS. 


XIX 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

Return from the Continent — Despatches — England and Southern Eu- 
rope — The Sepulchre of Andre wes — Westminster by Candlelight — St. Bar- 
tholomew’s, Moor-lane — The Anglican Reformers — Superficial views o i 
travellers — Dissent in England — Tithes — The late Recusancy — Newman 
and the Dublin Review — The English Bible — Conclusion 









/ 


IMPRESSIONS OE ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER I. 


First and Second Thoughts — A Warwickshire Welcome. 

About noon, one hazy April day, I found myself approaching 
the British coast, and was informed by the Captain of our gal- 
lant steamer, that in a few minutes we should gain a glimpse of 
the mountains of Wales. ' Instead of rushing to the upper-deck, 
I found myself forced by a strange impulse to retire to my 
state-room. For nearly thirty years had my imagination been 
fed with tales of the noble island over the sea ; and for no small 
portion of that period, its history and its institutions had been a 
favorite subject of study. To exchange, forever, the England of 
my fancy for the matter-of-fact England of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, was something to which I was now almost afraid to con- 
sent. For a moment I gave way to misgivings ; collected and 
reviewed the conceptions of childhood ; and then betook myself, 
solemnly, to the reality of seeing, with my own eyes, the land of 
my ancestors, in a spirit of thankfulness for so great a privilege. 
I went on deck. There was a faint outline of Snowdon in the 
misty distance ; and before long, as the mist dispersed, there, just 
before us, was the noble brow of Holyhead. 

It reminded me of the massive promontory opposite Breakneck, 
as we descend the Hudson, towards West Point : but the thought 
that it was another land, and an old as well as an ancestral one, 
strangely mingled with my comparative memories of home. 

1 


2 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


There is something like dying and waking to life again, in leaving 
one’s home, and committing one’s self to such a symbol of Eternity 
as the Ocean, and then, after long days and nights, beholding the 
reality of things unknown before, and entering upon new scenes, 
with a sense of immense separation from one’s former self. Op- 
pressive thoughts of the final emigration from this world, and de- 
scrying, at last, “ the land that is very far off,” were forced upon 
me. We doubled the dangerous rocks of Skerries, and began to 
coast along the northern shore of Anglesea : and then, with my per- 
spective-glass, I amused myself contentedly, for hours, as I picked 
out the objects presenting themselves on the land. Now a wind- 
mill, now a village, and now — delightful sight — a Christian spire ! 
It was night-fall when our guns saluted the port of Liverpool, 
and our noble steamer came to anchor in the Mersey. ..j 

Our voyage had been a very pleasant, and a highly interesting 
one. Extraordinary icebergs had been visible for several sue* 
cessive days, and had given us enough of excitement to relieve 
the tediousness of the mid-passage. Our two Sundays had been 
sanctified by the solemnities of worship ; and the only mishap ot 
our voyage had been such as to draw forth much good feeling, 
and to leave a very deep impression. One of the hands had been 
killed by accidental contact with the engine, and had been com 
mitted to the deep with the Burial Service of the Church, in the 
presence of all on board. A handsome purse was immediately 
made up for the surviving mother of the deceased ; and the pain- 
ful event tended greatly to the diffusion of a fraternal sympathy 
among the entire company. We became as one family: and 
now, before retiring for the night, I was requested, by those who 
remained on board, to offer a solemn thanksgiving to Almighty 
God, for our safe deliverance from the perils of the sea. This ii 
gave me pleasure to do ; and the words of the Psalmist rose in 
our evening devotions, “ Then are they glad because they are at 
rest ; and so he bringeth them unto the haven where they would 
be.” The noble vessel in which we had accomplished our voyage 
now lies many fathoms deep in the sea. It was the Arctic. 

On landing, in the morning, I inwardly saluted the dear 
soil, on which I was permitted at last to place my feet, and on 
which I could not feel, altogether, a foreigner. I ran the gaunt- 
let of tide-waiters, and the like, without anything to complain of, 
and, after a bath at the Adelphi, made my way to St. George’s 
Church. Here, for the first time, I joined in the worship of our 
English Mother ; though it was difficult to conceive myself a 


HOLY-WEEK. 


3 


stranger, until the expression — “ Victoria, our Queen and Gov- 
ernor” — recalled the fact that I was worshipping with the sub- 
jects of an earthly Sovereign, as well as among my brethren of 
the glorious City of God. 

A letter awaited me at the Post Office, which invited me to 
spend my rest-days with a dear friend. So, after a hasty survey 
of Liverpool, which I did not care to inspect minutely, I took an 
early evening train for Warwickshire, and was soon speeding 
athwart highways, and through hedges, towards my friend’s abode. 
Even my glimpses of England, from the flying carriage, were 
enough to occupy my mind delightfully: and often did some 
scene upon the road-side, or in the sprouting fields, recall inci- 
dents of history, or passages of poetic description, which filled 
me with emotion, and greatly heightened my preconceptions of 
the pleasures before me, in the tour which I thus began. 

So it happened that my first night on shore was passed beneath 
the roof of a pleasant English parsonage. My host had been, 
for years, my correspondent, and though we had never met be- 
fore, we counted ourselves old friends. My bed-room had been 
prepared for me, and furnished with such things, in the way of 
books and the like, as, it was fancied, would suit my tastes. One 
window overlooked the Church ; and another, over the church- 
yard, and its green graves, commanded a pretty view of the fields. 
It was the Holy Week. I was waked every morning by the bell 

for early prayers. The Bishop of W had sent me his 

permission to officiate, and when I went to Church, it was always 
as a priest of the One Communion. I was at home : as much 
so as if I had lived, for years, in the house where I was a guest. 
We kept the holy time together, and limited our diversions to 
pleasant and somewhat professional walks. We visited, for ex- 
ample, a parochial establishment, in which some twenty widows 
were lodged, by the benevolent charity of an individual. Every 
widow had her own little cottage, and the entire buildings en- 
closed a square, in which was their common garden. There was 
also a small chapel ; and in each little home there was a text in- 
scribed over the fire-place, encouraging charity, forbearance, and 
love to God. Here was a quiet Beguinage, built many years ago, 
and never heard of : but there are many such, in England, dear 
to God, and the fruits of his Church. I visited also a school 
founded by King Edward Sixth ; and having, on my first landing 
at Liverpool, paid a visit to its Blue Coat Hospital, founded by a 
prosperous seaman of the port, and furnishing a noble example to 


4 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


all sea-port cities, I had seen not a little to charm me with the 
religion of England, before I had been a week on her shores. 
Our quiet walks through lanes and by-paths, were not less grati- 
fying in their way. The hedges and the fields, gardens and resi- 
dences, the farms and the very highways, were full of attractions 
to my eye, and the more so, because my companion seemed to 
think he could find nothing to show me! He knew not the 
heart of an American, fond of his mother country, and for the 
first time in his life coming into contact with old-fashioned things. 
A heavy wagon, lumbering along the road to market, and in- 
scribed, “ John Trott, Carrier, Ashby-de-la-Zouche ” — was enough 
to set me thinking of past and present, of the poetry of Ivanhoe, 
and the prose of a market- wain ; and when I saw a guide-post, 
which for years had directed travellers “ To Stratford,” only 
twenty miles off, I could almost have bowed to it. A stage 
coach came along, bearing “Oxford” on its panels; and the 
thought that it had started that very morning from the seat of the 
University, and had raised the dust of Stratford-on-Avon, made 
its wheels look dignified. To enjoy England one must be an 
American, and a hearty and earnest member of the Anglican 
Church. Even the cry of “ hot cross buns,” which waked me 
on Good Friday morning, reviving the song of the nursery, and 
many more sacred associations with the day, made me thankful 
that I was no alien to the spirit of the solemnities, which even a 
traditionary cry in the streets tends to fasten upon the heart and 
conscience of a nation. 

Easter morning came at last, and I was up with the sun, and 
out for a walk. It came with a bright sunrise, and many cheer- 
ful notes from morning birds. I was confident I heard a lark 
singing high up in the air, for though I could not see the little 
fellow, I could not mistake the aspiring voice. His Easter Carol 
was a joyous one, and I set it to the familiar words — 

Christ, our Lord, is risen to-day, 

Sons of men and angels say ! 

The hedges were just in leaf : here and there the hawthorn had 
blossomed, but the weather was too cold for its silvery beauty ; 
and one almost pitied the few adventurous flowers, that, like good 
Churchmen, seemed only to have come out in conscientious re- 
gard to the day. I finished my morning walk by a turn or two 
through the church-yard, every grave of which was sparkling 
with dews, illuminated by the Easter sun. How forcibly the 


EASTER SUNDAY. 5 

scene represented the resurrection : “ The dew of thy birth is of 
the womb of the morning.” 

As I entered the parsonage, I heard the bells chiming from a 
distant parish church. My reverend friend met me with the sal- 
utation — “ the Lord is risen to which I could not but fervently 
respond in the same primitive spirit. We had a festal breakfast, 
after family prayers, and soon it was time for service. I could 
willingly have been a worshipper in private, but submitted to the 
authority of the parson, and became one of his curates for the 
day. We emerged from the Vestry in due order of the Psalm- 
ist — “ the singers going before,” men and boys alike in surpli- 
ces ; the latter with red cheeks, and white ribbons to tie their 
collars, looking like little chubby cherubs, and when they lifted 
their voices, sounding still more like them. The chancel was 
neatly decorated ; a few flowers placed over the altar, and an 
inscription on its cloth, “ I am the Bread of Life.” With the 
choral parts of the service I was surprised, as well as delighted. 
Boys and men all did their parts, in a manner which would have 
done honor to the authorities of a Cathedral, and I observed that 
the congregation generally accompanied the choir, especially the 
children in the galleries. I had never before heard the Athana- 
sian Hymn as part of the regular Service, and I was greatly* im- 
pressed by its majestic effect. After the Nicene Creed, I ascended 
the pulpit, and preached “ Jesus and the Resurrection,” and then, 
returning to the Altar, celebrated the Holy Eucharist, accord- 
ing to the English rite, administering to my reverend brethren 
and the lay-communicants. To this high privilege I was press- 
ingly invited by the pastor himself, in token of entire communion 
with the Church in America ; and thus I was able to join my 
personal thanksgivings for the mercies of a voyage, and my 
prayers for my absent flock and family, to a public exercise of 
the highest functions of my priesthood, at the altar of an English 
Church. 

The many incidents of the day, which afforded me ever fresh 
delight, might lose their charm, if reduced to narration, or might 
strike the reader as proofs of my facility to be gratified. But I 
cannot but mention that, strolling away, in the afternoon, to see 
how service was performed at another Church, I was gratified to 
find it filled with devout worshippers of the plainer sort, atten- 
tively listening to a very excellent sermon, appropriate to the 
day. While the preacher was warmly enlarging upon the prom- 
ise of a glorious resurrection, and I was quite absorbed in his 


6 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


suggestions, I suddenly caught a glimpse, among the crowd ol 
worshippers, of a figure which startled me, as forcibly illustrative 
of the words of the preacher, “ thy dead men shall live.’ It 
was the recumbent effigy of an old ecclesiastic of the fifteenth 
century, which I had not observed before. As if listening to the 
preacher, in joyful hope, there it lay upon the tomb, hands 
clasped placidly together, and looking steadfastly towards heaven ! 
How it seemed to join the hopes of the dead with those of the 
living, and to give force to every word which fell from the pulpit 
concerning the glory which shall be revealed in all those w ho 
sleep in Jesus ! 

With Easter-Monday our holidays, in the school-boy sense, 
began. My reverend friend proposed a visit to the Vicar, to 
whose patronage he owed his own incumbency of the Chapel of 

the Holy Trinity, in B . Off we started on foot, passing 

through the suburbs of a populous town, and finally emerging 
into the open country. We came suddenly in sight of the old 

Church of A ; its beautiful spire and gables admirably 

harmonizing with the surrounding view, and telling a silent story 
of long past years. Beyond it, a majestic avenue of elms dis- 
closed at its extremity a mansion of Elizabethan architecture and 
date ; not the less reverend in my associations for the fact that 
Charles the First slept in it just before Edgehill fight, and that a 
cannon-ball, still lodged in the stair-case, attests the perilous hon- 
or which his Sacred Majesty was thus pleased to bestow on its 
occupant. The solemn dignity of an old English residence of 
this kind, had heretofore been to me a thing of imagination ; now 
it was before my eye, not a whit less pleasing in its reality. The 
rooks were chattering in its venerable trees, which seemed to 
divide their predilections about equally with the steeple ; and I 
am told that they are such knowing birds, that whenever you see 
a rookery, you may be sure that there is both orthodox faith, and 
at least one sort of good-living in the neighborhood. 

Had I challenged my friend to show me a genuine Roger-de- 
Coverley picture in real life, as the entertainment of my holiday, 

I must have admitted myself satisfied with this scene at A . 

Not only did the old hall, and the church, in all particulars, 
answer to such a demand ; not only did a river run by the church- 
yard; not only were fields beyond, with cattle grazing, corn 
sprouting, and hedges looking freshly green ; but when I entered 
the church-yard gate, lo ! a rustic party, in holiday trim, were 
hanging about the old porch, awaiting the re-appearance of a bri- 


AN OLD CHURCH. 


7 


dal train, which had just gone in. It wanted but the old Knight 
himself and his friend the Spectator, to make the whole scene 
worthy of the seventeenth century. 

I entered the church, and found it in all respects just such an 
interior as I had longed to see ; apparently the original of many 
a pleasing print, illustrating Irving’s “Sketch-Book” and similar 
works, the delight of my childhood, and still affording pleasure 
in recollection. Its ample nave, widened by rows of aisles, ter- 
minated in the arch of a long chancel, at the altar of which 
stood not only one matrimonial couple, but actually five or six, 
whom two curates were busily uniting in the holy bonds of wed- 
lock. When the procession returned from the altar, they passed 
into the vestry to register their names, and one of the curates 
coming to the door of the church, found another group of vil- 
lagers, at the font, presenting a child for baptism. Following 
my friend into the vestry, I was presented to the Vicar himself, 
who seemed the genius loci in all respects ; a venerable gray-haired 
old gentleman, in his surplice, full six feet in stature, and worthy 
to sit for a portrait of Dr. Rochecliffe, in Woodstock. It was now 
time for service, and I was desired to robe myself, and accompany 
him into the chancel, two curates, the clerk, and some singers 
leading the way. I was put into a stall, marked with the name 
of some outlying chapelry of the parish, and appropriate to its 
incumbent when present. The chancel was filled with monu- 
ments, of divers ages and styles. At my left hand lay the effi- 
gies of a knight and his good dame, in Elizabethan costume ; be- 
yond were a pair of Edward III.’s time ; opposite were figures of 
the period of Henry VI. and much earlier ; the knights all in 
armor, and some with crossed legs, as a token that they had 
fought in Palestine. The service was intoned by one of the 
curates, in a severe old tone, authorized in Archbishop Cranmer’s 
time, which the Vicar afterwards assured me was very ancient, 
and the only genuine music of the Church of England. When 
the service was concluded, there was a churching to be attended 
to, at the south porch of the church, and to this duty one of the 
curates was deputed, while the Vicar himself detained us in the 
chancel with an enthusiastic antiquarian illustration of the mon- 
uments, to which I was a most willing listener. Here slept the 
de Erdingtons , and there the Ardens : such and such was their 
story; and such and such were the merits of the sculpture. 
Chantrey had visited these figures, and assured him that they 
were the finest in the kingdom ; and if I imagined, at the time, 


8 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


that such was merely Sir Francis’ courtesy to the worthy Vicar, 
I hope I may be forgiven, for some subsequent acquaintance with 
such things inclines me to believe the sculptor was sincere. On 
the walls were the heavy tablets of the Hanoverian period, and 
our attention was directed to the marked decline of art, from the 
period of the Crusades down to the Georges, growing worse and 
worse till George Fourth’s time, which improved the existing 
style, and was succeeded by a period of rapid return to correct 
taste and principle. Of all this the Church itself bore witness. 
Here the worthy man pointed out marks of its various stages of 
decline : here were barbarous repairs ; there a sad blunder of old 
Church- wardens ; here a wanton mutilation of Hanoverianism in 
1790, when the very worst things happened to the holy and beau- 
tiful house ; and there, at last, was a tine restoration of our own 
times. 

We were next conducted to the church-yard, the Vicar having 
doffed his surplice, and assumed his usual habit, which partook of 
the dignity and taste of its wearer in a pleasing degree. His 
hat was specially ecclesiastical, and turned up at the sides, and 
over his cassock and bands he wore a clerical surtout, so that as 
he strode over the graves, in his small-clothes, displaying a finely 
proportioned leg, his entire figure might have been thought con- 
temporary with that of his brother of Wakefield. We now learned 
the history of the Church, its great tithe, and its various plunder- 
ings under successive bad kings. We viewed the tower and spire 
from every possible point of vantage, and then went round the 
walls to see where a window had been blocked up, or a doorway 
broken through, or a pointed arch displaced for a square-headed 
debasement of the Tudor period. I never found before so good 
a “seimon in stones.” An ancient yew-tree was pointed out as 
having afforded boughs, before the- reformation, for the celebra- 
tion of Palm-Sunday. We adjourned to the Vicarage, where 
luncheon was served in the Library, a room filled with the 
choicest volumes ; and then we were dismissed for a walk, prom- 
ising to return, for our dinner, at five o’clock. 

Our road soon brought us to E — , where a Romish Chapel 

had been lately erected, by a man of fortune, in minute and ex- 
travagant reproduction of Medievalism. It was a thing for a 
glass case; a piece of admirable art; a complete Pugin; and no 
doubt in the middle ages would have been a very suitable thing 
for its purposes ; but, in our day, it seemed as little suited to 
Rome as to Canterbury. The Pope himself never saw such a 


A day's ramble. 


9 


place of worship, and would scarcely know how to use it ; and it 
was chiefly interesting to me as enabling me to see, at a glance, 
what the finest old Parish Churches of England had been in the 
days of the Plantagenets. At any rate, they were never Triden- 
tine, and they were always Anglican. This beautiful toy had a 
frightful Calvary in the church-yard ; but the interior was 
adorned with the finest carvings in Caen stone, and brilliant col- 
orings and gildings a la Froissart. The pulpit was adorned with 
the story of Becket, in very delicate sculpture, and around the 
Church were stations, or representations of the different stages of 
the Passion, carved elaborately in wood, and beautifully colored. 
The Virgin’s Altar and Chapel were gems of art ; and, of course, 
replenished with striking proofs that they “ worship and serve the 
creature more than the Creator.” I turned away heart-sick, 
that such unrealities of a dead antiquity could be employing the 
whole soul of any Englishman, and even tempting some into 
apostacy from the simple but always dignified Church of their 
ancestors. Let taste be the handmaid of religion, and all is well : 
but here was religion led captive by antiquarian fancy. 

Many other objects of interest filled up our day. We made a 
complete circuit, crossing green fields, leaping ditches, and break- 
ing through hedges. Up hill and down dell, and through fragrant 
country lanes ; here a river, and there a pool ; now a farm, and 
then a mill. Yellow gorse was in flower by the road-sides. We 
met many parties of village people enjoying their Easter sports, 
and dressed in holiday attire. This day, at least, it seemed merry 
England still. We came to Witton Manor-house, and thence 
caught a distant view of the spire, towards which it grew time 
to return. Immense elms, of darker look than those of New- 
England, beautified the view in every direction ; and the land- 
scape was diversified by many smaller trees, marking the water- 
courses. We came out, at last, by the old Hall, the exterior of 
which we closely examined, imagining the scene around its gates 
when the royal Stuart came to be its guest. Like many other 
mansions of the olden time, it is deserted now ; and the deepen- 
ing twilight in which we viewed it, harmonized entirely with the 
thoughts which it inspired. So we returned to the Vicarage, 
and again were warmly welcomed. At dinner we were presented 
to Mrs. r— , the Vicar’s wife, who seemed to take the liveli- 

est interest in my country and its Church, and kindly to appre- 
ciate my own enjoyment of the events of the day. After dinner 
the Vicar lighted his long pipe, and continued his exceedingly 

1 * 


10 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


interesting discourse about tbe olden time. I could see that lie 
was no admirer of the Crystal Palace, and all that sort of thing. 
I had met a laudator temporis acti, whose character and venerable 
appearance gave him a right to lament the follies of our own age ; 
and seldom have I enjoyed more keenly any intellectual treat 
than I did his arm-chair illustrations of past and present, as com- 
pared together. On his favorite topics of Church-music and 
Architecture he was very earnest and intelligent. The North- 
amptonshire Churches, he assured me, were the finest in England ; 
and kindly introducing me to the summa fastigia rerum , he took 
me to the very garret, to hunt up some superb plates of his favor- 
ite localities. When I bade adieu to this Vicarage, it was as one 
leaves an old friend. Such hospitality, and such heart afforded 
to a stranger ! Thus early had I found that old English man- 
ners are not yet extinct, and that the fellowship of the Church 
admits even a foreigner to their fullest enjoyment. It was eleven 
o’clock when we reached the no less hospitable home from which 
I started in the morning. 


CHAPTER II. 


Easter Holidays — Lichfield and Dr. Johnson. 

My reverend friend accompanied me to Lichfield, as our occu- 
pation for Easter-Tuesday ; kindly expressing his desire to have 
a share in the enthusiasm, with which he justly imagined the first 
sight of an ancient cathedral would inspire a visiter from Amer- 
ica. And although Lichfield is by no means one of the most im- 
pressive specimens of English cathedral architecture, as it is small, 
and not very well kept, I was very glad to begin my pilgrimage to 
the cathedrals with this venerable Church, the 6ee of the primi- 
tive and apostolic St. Chad ; the scene of some of the most severe 
and melancholy outrages of the Great Rebellion ; and the sacred 
spot, in which some of the earliest and most durable impressions 
were made upon the character of the truly great Dr. Johnson. 
Familiar with all I expected to see, so far as books and engravings 
could make me so, it was thrilling to set out for my first visit to 
such a place, and I was obliged to smother something like anxiety 
lest the reality should fall far below anticipation. How would it 
strike me, after all ? I was to tread, at last, the hallowed pave- 
ment of an ancient minister, in which the sacrifices of religion had 
been offered for centuries, and occupying a spot which had been 
drenched with the blood of primitive martyrs ; I was to join in 
the solemn chant of its perpetual services ; I was to go round 
about its walls, and mark well its bulwarks, and survey its 
towers, and to trace the tokens of those who had once set up 
their banners there, and broken down its carved work with axes 
and hammers, and defiled the place of its sanctuary. No English 
mind, to which ancient things have been familiar from birth, 
could possibly have appreciated my inward agitation at the pros- 
pect of such a day ; and, as I took my seat in the train, I could 
not but wonder at the indifference of my fellow-passengers, to 
whom booking for Lichfield was an every-day affair, and whose 


12 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


associations with that city were evidently those of mere business, 
and downright matter-of-fact. 

The three spires, crowning the principal towers of the Church, 
soon came in sight, and beneath its paternal shadow were clus- 
tered the humbler roofs of the town. How like a hen gathering 
her chickens under her wings, is a true cathedral amid the dwel- 
lings which it overshadows, and how completely is its true intent 
set forth by this natural suggestion of its architecture ! I had 
never, before, seen a city purely religious in its prestige , and I 
felt, as soon as my eyes saw it, the moral worth to a nation of 
many suck cities scattered amid the more busy hives of its in- 
dustry. On alighting, I could not but remark to my companion, 
the still and Sabbath-like aspect of the city. “ It is generally 
so,” he answered, “with our cathedral towns; they are unlike all 
other places.” This is their reproach in the eyes of the econo- 
mist; but such men never seem to reflect that the cathedral 
towns owe their existence to the fact they are such, and would, 
generally, have no population at all, but for their ecclesiastical 
character. Why can they not see, besides, that such a place as 
Lichfield is as necessary to a great empire, as a Sheffield ? It 
bred a Johnson — and that was a better product for England than 
ever came out of a manufactory of cotton or hardware. Proba- 
bly, just such a mind could have been reared only in just such a 
place. “You are an idle set of people,” said Boswell to his 
master, as they entered Lichfield together. “ Sir,” replied the 
despot, “ we are a city of philosophers : we work with our heads , 
and make the boobies of Birmingham work for us with their 
hands.” 

But here at length is the cathedral, and service is going on ! 
A moment’s survey of its western front, so old, so enriched with 
carvings and figures, so defiant of casual observation, and so 
worthy of careful study — and we pass inside — and here is the 
nave, and the massive and dim effect of the interior — somehow 
not all realized at once, and yet overpowering. We reach the 
choir, and a verger quietly smuggles us within. After a mo- 
ment’s kneeling, we observe that the Epistle is reading, and the 
service about to close. In a lew minutes my first impressions of 
worship in a cathedral are complete, and they are very unsatis- 
factory. I had reached the sanctuary too late for the musical 
parts of the solemnity, and there was rather a deficiency than an 
excess of ceremonial, in the parts I saw. A moment’s inspection 
convinced me that Lichfield Cathedral is, by no means, over- 


BISHOP HACKET. 


13 


worked by its Dean and Chapter. Alas ! I said to myself, what 
we could do with such a foundation in my own city, in America ! 
We might have such a school of the prophets as should be felt in 
all the land : we would make it the life of the place ; the seat of 
perpetual preachings, and prayers, and catechizings, and councils ; 
a citadel of power to the faith, and a magazine of holy armor 
and defences for the Church. Why do not these worthy Canons 
wake up, and go to work, like genuine sons and successors of 
St. Chad? 

We now went the rounds of the Church, with the stupid 
verger for our orator, and I began to experience the intolerable 
annoyance complained of by all travellers. “ Oh, that he might 
hold his tongue! We know it — we know it — only let us alone, 
and here’s your shilling” — said my inmost heart, a score of times, 
but still he mumbled on. He was most impressive in detailing 
the exploits of the Puritans : here they hacked, and there they 
hewed; this was done by Cromwell’s men — when they broke 
into the old Bishops’ sepulchres ; and that, when they hunted a 
cat, with the hounds, through the nave and aisles. Here they 
tooted with the broken organ pipes, and there the soldiers 
mounted the pulpit, and preached a la Woodstock. They went so 
far as to cut up their rations of flesh meat on the altar, and they 
baptised a calf at the font ; but, enough ; mine eyes have seen 
that there were such men in England two hundred years ago, and 
oh, let us pray that we may not deserve such judgments again. 
It was refreshing to stop before the tomb of Bishop Hacket, and 
to thank God, who put it into his heart to be a repairer of the 
breach. The Bishop had his * failings, but what he did for his 
cathedral should cover a multitude of sins, if he had so many. 
He was the man who, during the worst scenes of the rebellion, 
was threatened by a soldier with instant death, unless he desisted 
from the prayers which he was then offering, in the Church of 
St. Giles, Holborn, and who answered, calmly, “you do what 
becomes a soldier, but I shall do as becomes a priest,” and so 
went on with the service. At the Restoration, being already 
three-score and ten, he was appointed to this See. He found the 
cathedral almost a ruin; thousands of round shot, and hand- 
grenades had been fired upon it ; the pinnacles were battered to 
pieces, and the walls and spires seemed ready to fall, while the 
interior was a mass of filth and desolation. The very next day 
after his arrival, he set his own horses to work in clearing away 
the rubbish, and for eight years he devoted his wealth and labor, 


14 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


and made perpetual efforts among the zealous laity of the king- 
dom, to achieve and pay for the restoration of the Church, which 
he thus accomplished. Finally he reconciled the holy place by 
a solemn ceremonial, and re-instituted the services. When he 
heard the bells ring, for the first time, being then confined to his 
bed-chamber, he went into another room to hear the sound ; but, 
while he blessed God that he had lived to enjoy it, said it was his 
knell, and so, soon after, died like old Simeon. 

We paused before the busts of Johnson and Garrick, and the 
monuments of Miss Seward and Lady M. W. Montague, and 
also before a monument lately erected to some soldiers who per 
ished in India, over which the flags of their victories were dis- 
played. The kneeling figure of the late Bishop Ryder is pleasing 
and appropriate; but the object of universal attraction is the 
monument of two children, by Chantrey, so generally known 
and admired in prints and engravings. I cannot say that the 
style of this monument comports well with the surrounding archi- 
tecture, but in itself it is beautiful, and bespeaks that sentimental 
love of children for which the Church of England has made the 
English people remarkable, beyond other Christian nations. The 
epitaph is a sad blemish, but the reposing Innocents make you 
forget it. So simple and sweet is their marble slumber, which, of 
itself, speaks “ the Resurrection and the Life.” 

The cathedral-close is open and spacious, and one gains a very 
good view of the architecture, on all sides of the exterior. I sat 
down beneath some trees, at the eastern extremity of the Church, 
and for a long while gazed at the old stones, from the foundation 
to the topmost spire. They told of centuries — how mutely elo- 
quent ! All was so still that the rooks and jackdaws, chattering 
in the belfries, supplied the only sounds. There was the bishop’s 
palace at my right, the scene of Anna Seward’s bright days, and 
of some of Dr. Johnson’s happiest hours. The ivy almost covers 
its modest but ample front. The close is a little picture of itself; 
too much, perhaps, like the swallows’ nests, around the altar, in 
the warm and inactive contentment with which it must tend to 
surfeit any but the most conscientious of God’s ministers. 

On one side of the cathedral is a pretty pool, and altogether, 
in this point of observation, it presents a beautiful view. Swans 
are kept in this water, and go oaring themselves about, without 
that annoyance from boys and vagabonds, which prevents their 
being kept in public places, in our country. They came famil- 
iarly to us, and even followed us a long distance, as we walked 


THE WELL OF ST. CHAD. 


15 


on the margin of the pool, as if doing the honors of the place 
to ecclesiastical visitors. We now took a walk through the 
meadows, to Stowe, distant about half-a-mile, and presenting 
another pleasant picture, with its old, but beautiful parish-church. 
Here we found tokens of that work of Church restoration which 
is going on throughout all England, and which will make the age 
of Victoria enviably famous with future generations. The little 
Church was in perfect keeping, throughout ; severely plain, but 
strictly Anglican, and full of reverend simplicity. There were 
some pews in the Church, but the new sittings were all open, and 
apparently free. We looked with some interest at the monument 
of Lucy Porter, daughter of the lady who afterwards became the 
wife of Dr. J ohnson. Hard by the Church is the well of St. 
Chad, to which I next paid a visit, and from which I was glad 
to drink. It is twined with roses, and neatly arched over with 
masonry, on which is chiselled CE. EP. — that is, Ceadda Episco - 
pus, and here, in the seventh century, the holy man lived and 
baptized. St. Chad, though a Saxon by birth, was in British 
orders, of the primitive ante-Gregorian succession, and held the 
See of York, until his own humility, and the Roman scruples of 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, transferred him to Lichfield, 
where he lived the life of an apostle, and from which he itin- 
erated through the midland counties, very often, on foot, in the 
spirit of a truly primitive missionary. It was with exceeding 
veneration for the memory of his worth and piety, that I visited 
this scene of his holy life, and blessed God for the mercies which 
have issued thence, even to my own remote country. Such are 
the world’s true benefactors : the world forgets them, but their 
record is with God ; and He will make up His jewels yet, in the 
sight of the assembled universe. 

Returning, we had the cathedral before us, all the way, in truly 
delightful prospect. I observed the birds that darted across our 
path with peculiar pleasure, and could not but remark that the 
sparrows were John Bull’s own sparrows, having, in comparison 
with ours, a truly English rotundity and plumpness, which should 
no doubt be credited to the roast-beef of Old England, and to 
good ale, withal, or to something equivalent in the diet of birds. 
We now took a turn into the city, and first, went to see the 
house, in a window of which Lord Brooke was seated when he 
received the fatal bullet from the cathedral. It seems a great 
distance for such a shot ; and this fact heightens the peculiarity 
of the occurrence. There is a little tablet, fixed in the wall, 


16 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


recording the event. As it took place on St. Chad’s day, and as 
the shot was fired by a deaf and dumb man in the tower, putting 
out the eye with which the Puritan besieger had prayed he might 
behold the ruins of the cathedral, and killing him on the spot, it 
is not wonderful that the providence was regarded as special and 
significant. Sacrilege has been dangerous sport ever since the 
days of Belshazzar. It was a more gratifying occupation 
to seek next the birth-place of Dr. Johnson, with which 
pictures had made me so familiar, that when I came suddenly 
into the market-place, I recognized the house and St. Mary’s 
Church, and even the statue, all as old acquaintances. The pil- 
lars at the corners of the house give it a very marked effect, and 
one would say, at the outset, that it must have a history. It is 
not unworthy of such a man’s nativity. The Church in which 
the future sage was christened is almost directly opposite ; and as 
I came in view of it, I looked for its projecting clock, and found 
it, just as I had seen it in engravings. The statue of Dr. John- 
son is placed in the market square, just before the house in which 
he first saw the light. It was the gift of one of the dignitaries 
of the cathedral to the city. Did poor Michael Johnson, the 
bookseller, ever console his poverty and sorrows, as he looked 
from those windows on a stormy day, with visions of this tribute 
to the Christian genius of his son*? Perhaps, just where it 
stands, he often saw his boy borne to school on the backs of his 
playmates, in triumphal procession; and this incident of his 
childhood is now wrought into the monumental stone. In an- 
other bas-relief, he is seen as a child of three years old, perched 
on his father’s shoulder, listening to Dr. Sacheverel, as he 
preaches in the cathedral. In a third is illustrated that touching 
act of filial piety, the penance of the sage in Uttoxeter market. 
For an act of disobedience to his poor hard-faring father, done 
when he was a boy, but haunting him through life with remorse, 
the great man went to the site of his father’s humble book-stall 
in the market-place, and there stood bare-headed in the storm, 
one rainy day, bewailing his sin, and honoring the lowliness of 
the parental industry which provided for the wants of his dependent 
years. What moral sublimity! worthy indeed of a memorial, 
and doubtless recorded in the book of the Lamb that was slain to 
take away his sin ! 

Opposite St. Mary’s, and next door to the birth-place, we 
found the “Three Crowns Inn,” where Johnson chose to stay, 
with sturdy independence, when he visited Lichfield, refusing 

1 p 


DR. JOHNSON. 


17 


even the hospitalities of Peter Garrick. I suppose the room in 
which we lunched was the scene of another instance of true 
greatness in Dr. J ohnson, who, with the dignity of a gentleman, 
entertained here a friend of his humbler days, “whose talk was 
of bullocks,” and whose personal appearance was by no means 
agreeable, but to whose tiresome volubility, in things of his own 
profession, the sage extended the most patient and condescending 
attention. We could not but drink our mug of ale to the mem- 
ory of the immortal old man of ten thousand honest prejudices, 
and as many virtues ; in whom “ has been found no lie,” and who 
has made his own massive character, in some respects, the ideal 
of a genuine Englishman. 

We visited the hospital and Church of St. John Baptist, a 
charitable foundation of an old Bishop of Lichfield, who was 
also a munificent benefactor of Brazen-nose College, at Oxford. 
It is a queer, out-of-the-way, little blessing, of the sort which 
attracts no attention, but which bespeaks a Church at work 
among the people, of the like of which England is full. I was 
much pleased with this fragrant little flower of charity, for such 
it seemed, hiding, like the violet, out of sight, but heavenly when 
discovered. The Church of St. Michael, Green-hill, next at- 
tracted me, standing on an eminence, and crowning it with a 
conspicuous tower and spire. An avenue of venerable elms leads 
to its portal, and I found it open. The font, which is a relic of 
very high antiquity, has lately been restored to its place ; and 
nearly the whole of the nave is a late restoration. Here, then, 
is another proof of the revival of primitive life and zeal in the 
Church of England ! And all so truly national ; Anglican and 
yet Catholic ; consistent with self, and with antiquity, and at- 
testing a continuous ecclesiastical life, from the days of Ceadda, 
and his predecessors, until now. 

The Evening Service at the cathedral was far more gratifying 
than the morning’s experience had led me to anticipate. The 
evening sun streamed through the windows of the clere-story 
with inspiring effect, and the Magnificat quite lifted me up to the 
devotional heights I had desired to attain, in such a place. Then 
came the anthem, suitable to Easter- week — “Worthy is the 
Lamb that was slain.” How amiable the beautiful and holy 
place in which such strains have been heard for ages ! In pass- 
ing through the streets, on my way home, I saw one of the pop- 
ular sports of the Easter-holidays, peculiar to the midland 
counties, and a relic of the many frolics in use before the Re- 


18 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


formation. Some buxom lasses were endeavoring to lift , or 
heave , a strapping youth, who, in no very gallant style, repelled 
the embraces and salutations of his female aggressors. I take it 
for granted, however, that he was not released until he had been 
handsomely lifted into the air, and made to purchase his freedom 
by a substantial fine. This is a custom confined, of course, to 
the vulgar — but even among them, according to my judgment, 
“ more honored in the breach than in the observance.” 


CHAPTER III. 


Birmingham — The Oratory — Newman. 

Going up to London, I tarried for a few days at Birmingham, 
a town not pleasing to my fancy, and yet one which no tourist in 
England would choose to omit. I found it, indeed, as Leland 
described it three hundred years ago, “ to be inhabited of many 
smithes, that use to make knives, and all manner of cutting 
tooles : and many lorimers, that make bittes, and a great many 
naylors; so that a great part of the town is maintayned by 
smithes who have their sea-coal out of Staffordshire.” To this, 
I cannot help adding, in the style of old Fuller, that “ there be 
divers many also who do make buttons ; and a great store of all 
things gilt, and showy, and not costlie nor precious withal, do 
come out of Brummagem ; for which also the new bishoppes 
which Cardinal Wiseman did lately make therein, be commonly 
called the Brummagem hierarchie, that is to say, not so much 
Latin bishoppes as Latten bishops; latten being much used in 
Brummagem, and is made of stone of calamine and copper, or 
chiefly of brass.” I confess that good part of my interest in 
Birmingham proper was to see what this new hierarchy were 
about. 

The Town-Hall has been often enough described and praised, 
and is, no doubt, very fine ; but I did not go to England to see 
Grecian temples, and I took much more satisfaction in any old 
frame house of three centuries ago, than in the frigid and formal 
show of all its columns. 

On the whole, I tliink King Edward’s Grammar School the 
most interesting object in the town. Though the buildings were 
erected very lately, they are in the true academic style of Cam- 
bridge and Oxford. The pile is massive and imposing, and I was 
pleased to find that the solid oak of its noble rooms is the produc- 
tion of American forests. Here I first saw how English boys 


20 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


are made scholars ; the drill being obvious to even a moment s 
glance ; every motion and look of the masters, who walk up and 
down among the boys in their college gowns, implying a discipline 
and method, of which our schools are too commonly destitute. 
Queen’s College is also worthy of a visit, and I was much pleased 
with some of the pictures which I saw in its hall, among which 
was an old one of Mary Queen of Scots, representing her with 
her child, James Stuart. Who ever conceived of Mary as a 
motherly creature, or of the old pedant king as an unbreeched 
boy 1 Yet such were they in this painting, which was no doubt 
true, as well as beautiful, in its time. With the churches of 
Birmingham I was not particularly impressed. St. Martin’s, the 
“old paroch-church” of Leland’s day, scarcely retains any rem- 
nant of its ancient self, except the spire, which leans, and seems 
likely to fall. The sovereign hill of the town is surmounted by 
St. Philip’s, which ought to be a cathedral, and the seat of a 
school of the prophets, but which looks like nothing more than a 
plethoric Hanoverian temple, in which indolent and drowsy 
worldliness would be content to say its prayers not more than 
once a week. I was better pleased with a church in the suburbs, 
built in George Fourth’s day, and partaking both of the merits 
and defects of that period of transition, when the church was 
in palmy prosperity as “the venerable establishment.” Here 
first I saw an English funeral, evidently of one of the humbler 
class, all parties walking on foot, and the coffin carried on a bier. 
The curate met the procession at the gate, in his surplice and 
cap, and then reverently uncovering his head, led the way into 
the house of God, the consoling words of the service gradually 
dying on my ear, as the rear of the funeral train disappeared 
within. The parsonage is close at hand, an ecclesiastical looking 
house of most appropriate and pleasing aspect ; and the abode, as 
I can testify from personal knowledge, of the true spirit of an 
English parish priest — such an one as Hooker and Herbert would 
have rejoiced to foreknow. In his Church the prayers are per- 
petual ; the fire never going out on the altar, and its gates stand- 
ing open, as it were, night and day. The vicinity is known as 
“ Camp Hill,” for here was the furious llupert once in garrison ; 
but a queer old house, all gables and chimneys, is pointed out, 
upon the hill, as the former lodging of his redoubtable adversary, 
old Noll himself. Hence we stretch into the country, and gain 
those pleasant extremes of Warwickshire, which Leland notetli, 
not forgetting the return by Sandy Lane, through “ Dirty End,” 


VISIT TO OSCOTT. 


21 


which, since the days of his chronicle, is euphuized into Deri- 
tend. This place is full of what the Brummagem Cardinal 
would call slums , and one of them, as if on purpose to affront a 
portion of my countrymen, displayed to my astonishment, on a 
street sign, the name of “ New-England.” Did any returned 
pilgrim settle down here, and give the last retreat of his poverty 
this name ? 

“ Born in New-England, did in London die,” 

is a well-known epitaph, which may possibly explain this circum- 
stance; for, said Dr. Johnson, “who that was born in New- 
England, would care to die there,” or words to that effect. Yet 
I confess, for life or death, I have scarcely seen any place in our 
own New-England which would not be preferable to this, although 
Leland calls Dirty End “ a pretty street with a mansion of tym- 
ber hard on the bank of a brook, with a proper chapel close by.” 
Here I stopped before the aged front of the “ Old Crown Inn,” 
which I take to be the same “tymber” mansion, having all the 
odd corners, and juttings-forth, and quaint appurtenances of cen- 
turies long gone by. These out-of-the-way ramblings and 
searches were far more to my taste than the gaudy sights of the 
shops and manufactories. 

I went out to Oscott, and took a survey of the enemy’s head- 
quarters, to begin with. Here Tridentinism shows her best front, 
and yet it falls far below what I had been led to expect. The 
college is built of brick, but is prettily situated, and commands a 
fine view from the leads, to which I ascended, for a prospect of 
the surrounding country. There is little architectural merit in 
any part of the structure, and the general appearance of things, 
throughout, is below that of collegiate institutions in England, 
or on the Continent. I was pleased, however, with the rooms 
set apart for ecclesiastical visitors, so far as their furniture was 
suitable to offices of private devotion, and not merely to those of 
rest and recreation ; and I was not sorry to see in the Library 
a pretty large selection of standard English divines, though I am 
painfully suspicious that they are not there to be freely used by 
all who would read and study them. The chapel is gaudy, yet in 
true Mediaeval character, and somewhat impressive. The other 
rooms are labelled — pransoriuin, deversorium , and the like, or sur- 
mounted with the names of the divers arts, as Rhetoi'ica , Diahc- 
tica , and so on. In the common-room are showy portraits of 


22 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


the chiefs of the Romish recusancy in England, some of whom 
look like saints, and some like Satan. There was a portrait of 
Pugin, to which I directed the attention of the official who 
served as guide. He sneered significantly, and said Pugin was a 
queer fellow, which meant that they had found him not so blind 
as they wished him to be, to his fatal mistake in joining them. 
He studied Mediaeval Anglicanism, with the illusion that it was 
all one with modern Tridentinism, and had left his mother Church 
in the vain hope that he should find a more congenial sphere for his 
antiquarian tastes, among the English Papists. But he found 
the past even more absolutely ignored at Oscott than at Oxford. 
Anglicans are glad to retain all that may be safely retained of 
their own antiquity : but Romanists are Italian throughout, and 
any thing that is national, is schismatical. They know nothing 
of Augustine and little of Anselm ; they date from Trent, and to 
that all must conform. Old liturgies, old customs, old principles, 
as he in vain tried to recommend them, they laughed at as utterly 
obsolete : and he in turn scoffed at their Romanesque, and their 
Oratorianism, as infinitely less Catholic than the Anglican Gothic, 
and the Anglican Prayer-Book. Poor fellow ! he has since died 
in a mad-house — a noble genius, but the victim of theory, and of 
unreal conceptions as to the diseases and the cure of the times. 

If I was disappointed at Oscott, much more at St. Chad’s, their 
new cathedral in Birmingham. So much was said about this 
attempt, that I had supposed it a chef d? oeuvre of the architect, 
and a complete trap for dilettanti Anglicans. It is the reverse of 
all this, being so poor, and even niggard in its entire conception 
and execution, that I am sure it must be a spoiled Pugin, if his 
at all. It is of brick, and of small dimensions, and not cleanly. 
Its crypts are instructive as to the way in which the crypts 
of the old cathedrals were formerly used, being fitted up for 
masses for the dead, but not much adorned. They are damp, 
dark, and somewhat offensive, as they are used for burial. 

Strolling out to Edgbaston, I saw the rising walls of Newman’s 
Oratory. This, too, is strictly conformed to his new Italian idea 
of religion, which scrupulously eschews the old English architec- 
ture, associated as that is with Magna Charta and the Constitu- 
tions of Clarendon, and with three hundred years of absolute inde- 
pendence. This is in strict agreement with his development theory. 
The Romanism of the present is the rule, and that is Italian : the 
past was immature and undigested, and hence savored, more or 


ORA TOMANS. 


23 


less, of nationality. How vastly more severed, then, from the 
historical antecedents of his country is the British papist, than 
the genuine Anglican ! 

While I was in Birmingham, Mr. Newman yet occupied his 
temporary Oratory, in the neighborhood of Camp-Hill. It was 
an old distillery, and, of course, was but an ill-looking place for 
worship. Wishing to see him and his sect, I went one day to 
the spot, and pushing aside a heavy veil at the door, such as is 
common in Italian churches, found myself in a low and dirty- 
looking place of worship, in which the first object that met my 
eye was an immense doll of almost ludicrous aspect, near the 
door, representing the Virgin, with the crescent beneath her feet. 
Bishop Ullathorne proves Mohammed to have been the first be- 
liever in the Immaculate Conception, so that we cannot but admit 
the propriety of the symbol. Before this image several youth, with 
broad tonsures, and in long cassocks, were kneeling, in a manner 
truly histrionic. One of them rose and asked if I would like to 
be shown the library, and so conducted me up a dark and narrow 
stair-case into a large apartment, in which were no books, but 
which appeared to be hung with baize, like the rooms of an 
artist. He informed me that the books were in petto , and would, 
by and by, be manifested ; apologizing for the present deficiency. 

A person, in like costume with my conductor, and with a 
shaven crown even more grotesque, was pacing to and fro in the 
room, apparently devoting himself to a book which he held in 
hand. At a question of mine, addressed to my guide, as to where 
Mr. Newman might be, this personage turned sharply round and 
answered, “ he has been all day in the Confessional, where he 
would be glad to see yow.” “ Who is that person ? ” I demanded, 
looking towards the strange apparition, as he continued pacing 
up and down, and addressing my guide. u Father Ambrose,” 
was the reply. “ Yes, but what is his name beyond the walls of 
the Oratory'?” The young man, rather reluctantly, lisped out, 

“ Mr. S .” “ Mr. S ,” I rejoined, “ late of 

College, Oxford ! Can it be possible ? ” I looked at him, utterly 
unable to conceal my surprise, and pitied him in my heart. The 
youths whom I had seen were doubtless all, like him, young men 
of promise and of parts only a few years since, in Oxford ; and 
now to see them thus ignobly captive, and performing such unreal 
and corrupting dramatics, in an age of wants and works, and of 
awful realities, like this ! But where was the ignis fatuus of the 
bog into which they had fallen *? Inquiring for their Master, I 


24 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


was informed he was to preach in their chapel on a certain 
evening, and accordingly I attended at the appointed time. It 
was during the Octave of Easter, and on entering, I observed 
that the altar was a bank of flowers, looking more like the shelves 
of a conservatory, than the table of the Lord. Above this hor- 
ticultural display towered a thing of wax and glass and spangles, 
(or what seemed to be such,) as the apparent divinity of the 
shrine. It was a shameful burlesque of the Virgin, and utterly 
incompetent to excite one religious or reverent thought in any 
mind not entirely childish, or depraved in taste. It was sur- 
rounded with tawdry finery, and looked like the idol of a pagoda. 
The room was well lighted, and filled with the sort of people 
usually frequenting Romish chapels in this country. A few well- 
dressed persons seemed to be strangers, and like myself were 
treated with great civility. The chancel was filled with the 
youths I had seen before, wearing over their cassocks the short 
jacket-like surplice, usual in Italy. These were offering some 
prayers in English, but they could not be called English prayers ; 
and then followed a hymn, given out and sung very much in the 
style of the Methodists. I could not distinguish what it was 
altogether, but the hymn-book which they use was given me in 
Birmingham, and consists, in a great degree, of such ditties as 
this, which they apparently address to the image over the altar : — 

“ So age after age in the Church hath gone round, 

And the Saints new inventions of homage have found ; 

Conceived without sin , thy new title shall be 
A new gem to thy shining, sweet Star of the Sea!” 

Many hymns in the collection are not only lack-a-daisical in the 
extreme, but highly erotic, and even nauseously carnal. I could 
scarcely believe my eyesight, so senseless seemed the ceremony ; 
and yet here were educated men, Englishmen, sons of a pure and 
always majestic Church, and familiar with the Holy Scriptures 
from their infancy ! How shall we account for such a phenom- 
enon in the history of the human mind, and of the human soul ? 

While the singing was going on, a lank and spectral figure ap- 
peared at the door of the chancel — stalked in, and prostrated 
himself before the altar. This was followed by a succession of 
elevations and prostrations, awkward in the extreme, and both 
violent and excessive : but whether required by the rubric, or 
dictated by personal fervor only, they added nothing to the so- 
lemnity of the scene. Meanwhile the hymn was continued by 


A SERMON. 


25 


the disciples, as fanatically as the pantomime was performed by 
the Master. But could this be the man ? Could this be he who 
once stood in the first pulpit of Christendom, and from his watch- 
tower in St. Mary’s, told us what of the night ? Was this the 
burning and shining light who for a season allowed us to rejoice 
in his light ? What an eclipse ! I felt a chill creep over me as 
he mounted his rostrum, and turned towards us his almost mani- 
acal visage. There could be no mistake. It was, indeed, poor fallen 
Newman. He crossed himself, unfolded a bit of broad ribbon, 
kissed it, put it over his shoulders, opened his little Bible, and 
gave his text from the Vulgate — Surrexit enim , sicut dixit — “ He is 
risen, as he said” The preaching was extemporaneous; the 
manner not fluent ; the matter not well arranged ; gesticulations 
not violent nor immoderate; the tone, affectedly earnest; and 
the whole thing, from first to last, painfully suggestive of a sham ; 
of something not heartily believed ; of something felt to be un- 
real by the speaker himself. And yet “ the hand of Joab was in 
it.” There was no denying the craft of no common artist. He 
dwelt chiefly on Sicut dixit — to which he gave a very New- 
man-like force, repeating the words over and over again. 
“ Sicut dixit , my friends, that is, as he said , but as you would not 
believe ! This was a reproach : as much as to say — What did 
you expect ? Were you not told as much ? Of course , he is risen , 
far he said so!” In this way the preacher reached the point of 
his discourse, which was, that “ the original disciples themselves, 
who thought they knew and loved Christ — nay, who did love 
him, and came to embalm his body, after he was crucified — had 
so little faith, as to deserve a rebuke, instead of a commendation. 
They had to be harshly reminded of what Jesus had said to them 
with his own mouth. Well, just so in our day , thousands who 
think they know and love him, have yet no real faith ; don’t be- 
lieve, in short, what the Church requires them to believe, and 
hence are strangers to the Catholic faith.” Drawing illustrations 
from the days of Noe (so he called him) and many Old Testa- 
ment histories, he endeavored to show, in like manner, that God 
had always required men to believe the very things they were not 
willing to believe : and hence he drew his conclusion that the 
slowness of men to believe all that Romanism prescribes, is mere 
want of faith. It would have been quite to the point to have 
shown a sicut dixit in support of the matters which he endeavored 
to force upon us, before he asked us to admit that denying the 
Deification of Mary,” is all the same thing as doubting the 


26 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


Resurrection of Christ from the dead ; but of course this joint 
was wanting. I was amused at the ingenuity, but shocked at the 
juggle of such an argument, which was simply this — that because 
it is sinful to doubt what Christ has said, therefore it is equally 
sinful to doubt what he never said , and what is directly contrary 
to many things which he did expressly say ! The orator, in de- 
livering this apology for his new faith, by no means forgot a little 
plea for himself personally, in which I saw evidence of his 
wounded pride. He said, “ Christ thus sent a rebuke to his dis- 
ciples for not believing what he said ; and you know how hard it 
is, for even us, to bear such unbelief in our friends. We know 
we are sincere; but they say, for example, he is artful , he dorft be- 
lieve his own words , he deceives ; or, if they don’t say that, then 
they say, he is crazy , he is beside himself he has lost his wits .” On 
this he enlarged with much feeling, for he was pleading his own 
cause, and in fact he rambled on in this direction till he had 
nearly forgotten his argument. But I was amused at one in- 
stance of his forgetting himself in particular. In referring to the 
hard names Christ himself had to bear, he had occasion to quote 
St. Matthew xxvii., 63, where the Romish version reads, “ Sir, we 
have remembered that that seducer said, yet living, etc.” But before 
he knew it, he forgot that he was an actor, and unwittingly quot- 
ed the smoother rendering of his good old English Bible, “ Sir, 
we remember that that deceiver said while he was yet alive.” 
While dwelling on the words that deceiver , he bethought himself 
that he was quoting heresy, and hobbled as well as he could into 
some other equivalent, but whether the very words of his new 
Bible or not, I cannot affirm. There were other similar haltings 
of the tongue, which show that a man may have a good will to 
say the Romish Shibboleth, and yet betray himself occasionally, 
by “not framing to pronounce it right.” Newman certainly for- 
got the talismanic aspirate on this occasion ; he seemed to be con- 
scious of playing a part, and, altogether, when he had done, I 
left the place, contented to have done with him. Alas! that gold 
can be thus changed, and the fine gold become so dim ! 

I could not learn that he was doing much by all his efforts; in 
fact he was said to be somewhat crest-fallen and irritable, about 
things in Birmingham. His Oratorians were going about the 
streets in queer, and, in fact, ridiculous garments, and attracting 
stares and jibes, and no doubt they felt themselves martyrs; but 
there is, after all, much sturdy common sense in John Bull’s ha- 
tred of the absurd, and few can think any better of folly for wear- 


ST. PHILIP NERI. 


27 


ing its cap in broad daylight. The results God only can foresee; 
but a delusion so patent, one would think — if it must have its 
day — must also find daylight enough in the very shortest day in 
the year to kill it outright. 

They showed me, at the Oratory, a wax cast of the face of St. 
Philip Neri, and a very pleasant and benevolent one it was. He 
was an Italian Wesley, and the Pope was his bitter adversary, in 
his life-time, interdicting him, and refusing him the Sacraments, 
and almost excommunicating him. But somehow or other when 
he was out of the way, it became convenient to canonize him, as 
a sort of patron of enthusiasts of a certain class, who find in his 
fraternity, a free scope for their feelings and passions. Oratorian- 
ism is the Methodism of the Trent religion, but has a virtual 
creed of its own, and is as really a sect as Methodism was in the 
life-time of its founder. Hence it is odious to many even of the 
new converts, and many old-fashioned Romanists abhor it. I 
left the Oratory of Mr. Newman with a deep impression that he 
has yet a remaining character to act, very different from that in 
which he now appears, but in which it will be evident that he is 
far from satisfied, at this time, with the direction which he has 
given to his own movement, and with the grounds on which he 
has chosen to rest his submission to the Pope. 


CHAPTEE IY. 


Arrival in London , and first twc days . 

In early life I had always promised myself a first view of Lon- 
don, either approaching the Tower by water, and taking in the 
survey of steeples, bridges, and docks, or else descending from 
Hampstead, on the top of a rapid coach, and beholding the great 
dome of St. Paul’s, arising amid a world of subordinate roofs, 
and looming up through their common canopy of cloud-like 
smoke. Alas ! for all such visions, we have reached the age of 
the rail : and, consequently, I found myself, one afternoon, set 
down in a busy, bustling station-house, with a confused sensation 
of having been dragged through a long ditch, and a succession of 
dark tunnels, and with a scarcely less confused conception of 
the fact, that I was in London. A few policemen loitering about, 
and a line of cabs and ’busses of truly English look, confirmed 
the conviction, however, that I was really in the Metropolis, and 
I soon found myself looking up my luggage, in the business way 
of one accustomed to the place, and without a single rapture or 
emotion of the marvellous. Some things were very different 
from an American station-house ; as, for example, the dignity of 
an ecclesiastical gentleman emerging from the first-class carriages 
in cocked-hat, and solemn cravat and surtout, his short-clothes 
eked into pantaloons by ponderous leggings, buttoned about his 
black stockings, and his whole deportment evincing a reverend 
care of his health and personal convenience — the inevitable 
umbrella especially, neatly enveloped in varnished leather, and 
tucked under the consequential arm ; or again, the careful avoid- 
ance of the crowd evinced by a dignified lady, accompanied by 
her maid, and watching with an eye-glass the anxious manipulations 
of a footman, in showy livery, piling up a stack of trunks, hat- 
boxes, and what not, all inscribed, “ Lady Dashey, Eaton Place, 
Belgrave Square.” Getting into a cab, with my very democratic 


LONDON STREETS. 


29 


luggage safely rescued from the vans, and forcing an exit through 
vehicles of all ranks, from the dog-cart up to the lumbering coach, 
with footman behind, and my lord inside, I emerge at length into 
London streets from the Euston Square Station, and begin to 
make my way towards the focus of the world. How mechanic- 
ally I jog along, just as if I had lived here all my life, and with- 
out the least conformity to the fact that my pulse is quickening, 
and mine eye straining to realize a long ideal, which in a few mi- 
nutes will be substantial fact ! Every street-sign arrests my eye, 
“Paddington New Road,” “Gower Place,” “Torrington Square,” 
“ Keppell Street,” “ Bedford Square,” “ Great Russell Street,” 
“Bloomsbury,” “Bond Street,” “Seven Dials,” “St. Martin’s 
Lane,” and now I begin to know where I am. There is St. Mar- 
tin’s — there the lion with a long tail on Northumberland House — 
here is Trafalgar Square — I see Charles First, on horseback, at 
Charing Cross — and here old George Third, with his queue, at 
the head of Cockspur Street — and here the Haymarket and Pall 
Mall, and here I am set down at the hospitable door of a friend, 
first known in America, and who has kindly insisted on my 
spending my first few days in London as his guest. It was an un- 
expected pleasure, but a great one, to receive my first impressions 
of London in the agreeable company of the Reverend Ernest 
Hawkins, a person singularly qualified to share the feelings 
of a stranger, but upon whose valuable time I should not have 
ventured to trespass, except at his own friendly instance. After 
renewing the acquaintance, formed during his short visit to our 
country in 1849, the question was, Where shall we begin? A 
fine day was already clouded over, and alternate light and shade 
were inviting and again discouraging out-door amusements. How 
ever, a turn through St. James’s Park to Whitehall was practica- 
ble enough, and at Whitehall I was resolved to begin. Forth 
we go, step into the Athenseum Club House, and descend into the 
Park, by the Duke of York’s Column, descrying through the 
mist the towers of Westminster Abbey, and soon passing through 
the Horse-Guards, stand “ in the open street before Whitehall.” 
There is the Banqueting-room — there the fatal window — here is 
the very spot, where the tide turned between old and new, and 
parted on an axe’s edge. That martyrdom! What that has 
happened in Church and State, not only among Anglo-Saxons, but 
in the greater part of Europe, since 1649, has not resulted from the 
deed of blood done here ! 

My kind friend took me out upon Hungerford Bridge, and bade 


30 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


me use eyes, and tell the different objects if I could. I turned 
towards Lambeth, saw the old towers through the gray mist, and 
began with indescribable pleasure to single out St. Mary’s, Lambeth, 
the New Parliament Houses, Westminster Hall, the Abbey, St. 
Margaret’s, and so forth, till turning round, I descried St. Paul’s, 
(vast, sublimely so, and magnificently tutelary,) and nearer by, 
Somerset House and the bridges, and the little steamers shooting 
to and fro beneath their noble arches. Enough for a first glimpse ! 
We went into Regent Street, and by Burlington Arcade into Pic- 
cadilly, and turning into St. James’s Street, I first saw the old 
Palace at its extremity, looking just as one sees it in Hogarth’s 
picture of “the Rake going to Court,” in the last century, old 
and shabby, and venerable altogether. Such was my first ramble 
in London and Westminster. 

I was so happy as to meet at dinner that evening, a small party 
of the clergy of the Metropolis, in whose company the hours went 
rapidly and delightfully by, with many warm, and, I dare say, 
heartfelt expressions of interest in America and her Church ; the 
whole presided over by my reverend entertainer, with the most 
animating spirit of dignified cordiality. The general desire which 
prevails to know something of a new Bishop of the Church, may 
excuse my particularizing the Rev. John Jackson, Rector of St. 
James’s, Westminster, and Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, 
who was one of the party, as a person of very unassuming, but 
attractive manners, of whose subsequent elevation to the See of 
Lincoln, it has given me no little pleasure to learn. 

With what a world of new and confused emotions, I tried to 
drop to sleep after such a day ! The roof beneath which I was 
reposing was an historic one. Standing in the precincts of St. 
James’s, it had once been the abode of the beautiful but un- 
happy Nell G Wynne, the one of all those wretched creatures who 
disgraced the Court of the Second Charles, for whom one feels 
more pity than scorn; and for whom, remembering the com- 
parative goodness of her natural qualities, and her own plaintive 
lament over her education in a pot-house to fill glasses for drunk- 
ards, there must have been compassion from the Father of Mer- 
cies, and possibly pardon from the blood that cleanseth from all 
sin, her penitent death being more than probable. It is certainly 
gratifying that a mansion once given up to such associations is 
now turned into an abode of piety and benevolence, and made the 
head quarters of the operations of the venerable S. P. G. In the 
chamber where I was lodged, had lately rested those estimable 


WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 


31 


missionaries, Bishops Field, and Medley, and Gray, and Strachan ; 
and I felt unworthy to lay my head where such holy heads had 
been pillowed. But a blessing seemed to haunt the spot which 
they, and many like them, had reconciled to virtue, and hallowed 
by their pure repose ; and I slumbered sweetly, dreaming of Lud’s 
town, and King Lud, and of divers men of divers ages, who had 
come to London, upon manifold errands, to seek their fortunes 
there, and there to flourish and wax great, or to rise and fall, 
until now it was my lot to mingle with its living tides, and then 
to pass away again to my far-off home, as “ a guest that tarrieth 
but a night.” 

When I rose in the morning, I looked out into the park, and 
now for the first time, gained a clear idea of that strange scene 
described in Evelyn’s Memoirs, as occurring between King 
Charles and Mistress Nelly, while the grovelling monarch was 
walking with him in the Mall. The wretched woman was stand- 
ing on a terrace, at the end of her garden, and looking over into 
the park, when the king turns from Evelyn, and going towards 
her, holds a conversation with her in that public place and man- 
ner. “ I was heartily sorry at this scene,” says the pure-minded 
journalist; and indeed it forboded no little evil to both Church and 
nation, as well as to the miserable Prince who could thus debase 
his crown and character, in the face of the open day, and of a 
virtuous man. 

And now, having a whole day before me, I began by attending 
divine service in Westminster Abbey. Through the park and 
Birdcage- walk, I went leisurely to old Palace Yard, passing round 
the Abbey and St. Margaret’s, and so entered by Poet’s corner. 
Service was going on, and of course I gave myself as much as 
possible to its sacred impressions, but was unable to repress some 
wandering thoughts, as my eyes caught the long lines and inter- 
sections of nave and aisles, or turned upwards to the clere-story, 
where the smoky sunlight of a London morning was lingering 
along the old rich tracery and fret-work, to which every cadence 
of the chaunt seemed to aspire, and where just so, just such sun- 
beams have come and gone as quietly over all the most speaking 
and eventful pageants of the British Empire, since William First 
was crowned here, in the midst of those Norman and Saxon an- 
tagonists whose blood now runs mingled in the veins of the Brit- 
ish people. Nay, we must send back our thoughts at least so far 
as Edward the Confessor, who was also crowned here, and whose 
sepulchre is hard at hand. What thoughts of human splendor, 


32 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


and of human nothingness! The anthem was — Awake up my 
Gkyry — and as it rose and fell, and tremulously died away, distri- 
buting its effect among innumerable objects of decayed antiquity, 

I seemed to catch a new meaning in the strain of the psalmist. 
How many tongues were mute, and ingloriously slumbering around 
me — the tongues of poets and of princes and of priests : but the living 
should praise the Lord in their stead, and in this place that humbles 
the glory of men, it was good to sing — “ Set up thyself, oh God, 
above the heavens, and thy glory above all the earth.” When 
the service was over, I preferred to leave the Abbey, with this 
general effect still upon me, and to take it, at some other time, in 
details: and so, with only a few glances at the familiar objects in 
Poet’s Corner, I passed thoughtfully through the choir, which is 
extended down the nave, and so into the south aisle, and out into 
the cloisters. I took passing notice of the Andre monument, and 
of the Thynne monument, which I recognized by their sculpture 
alone. I saw at once that I was not likely to be satisfied with 
such ill-placed memorials, interesting as they may be in them- 
selves. In the cloisters, I was so fortunate as to meet Lord John 
Thynne ; and on being introduced to his Lordship, and remarking 
that “ I remembered very well his connection with the Abbey, as 
Sub-dean, from Leslie’s Picture of the Coronation,” (in which 
he bears the chalice, as the Archbishop gives the Bread of the 
Sacrament to Queen Victoria,) he courteously suggested that 
perhaps I might think it worth while to look at the coronation 
robes, which are not usually seen by visitors, but which were in 
his custody, and which he should be happy to have me see. His 
Lordship then led the way into the famous Jerusalem Chamber, 
a place not ordinarily shown, but full of interest, not only as the 
scene of the swooning of Henry Fourth, but as the seat of the 
Holy Anglican Synod, which has since revived, (“ Laud be to God,”) 
in the same Jerusalem where Henry died. This place is by no 
means such as my fancy had led me to suppose, but has the air of 
having been remodeled in James First’s time, although an ancient 
picture of Richard Second — I think in tapestry — is sunk in the 
wainscot. The chamber is small, and of very moderate architec- 
tural merit, but must always be a place of deep and hallowed asso- 
ciations. Adjoining this is the Refectory of the Westminster school- 
boys, into which we were shown, and where his Lordship remind- 
ed us that the tables were made of the oak of the Spanish Armada. 
They were full of holes, burned into them by the Westminster boys, 
who are always ambitious each to “leave his mark” in this way . 


CORONATION VESTMENTS. 


33 


so that as you look at them, you may fancy this to have been 
burned by little George Herbert, or Ben Jonson, or John Dryden, 
or Willie Cowper, or Bob Southey — all of whom have, in their 
day, sat on the forms of Westminster. Until so late as 1845, 
this refectory was warmed by the ancient brazier, the smoke 
escaping through the louvre in the roof. On coming to the Deanery, 
Dr. Buckland reformed this ancient thing, and a very ugly stove 
now reigns in its stead, as a monument of the Dean’s ultilitarian- 
ism and nineteenth-century ideas on all possible subjects. 

After we had carefully inspected this interesting hall, Lord 
John was as good as his word, and took us to see the robes, but 
precisely where he took us, it would be hard for me to say. It 
was in some room contiguous, where a fidgety little woman with 
keys in her hands, attended as mistress of the robes, and opening 
the repository of the sacred vestments, displayed them with such 
profound obsequiousness to the mildly dignified ecclesiastic who 
conducted us, that if she called him “my lord” once, she did so 
some twenty times in a single minute. The readers of Mrs. 
Strickland’s “Queens of England” will not require me to enlarge 
upon these superb vestments, now dimmed and faded in their 
splendour by the lapse of nearly two centuries, since they were 
made for the coronation of the luckless, and almost brainless, 
James the Second. They are worn at coronations only, by the 
clergy of the Abbey, and we had the pleasure of seeing our re- 
verend guide in his appropriate cope as Sub-dean ; the same which 
he wore when Victoria was crowned, and which has been worn 
by his predecessors, successively, at the coronations of William 
and Mary, Queen Anne, the four Georges, and William the Fourth. 
Similar vestments in form, though not in splendour, are to this 
day the rubrical attire of the clergy of the English Church in 
celebrating the Holy Communion, but I believe they are now 
never used, although they were in use at least in Durham Cath- 
edral, so late as the middle of the last century. Having seen 
these interesting and historical vestments, we thanked the amiable 
dignitary, to whom we had been indebted for so much polite atten- 
tion, and took our leave, emerging into Dean’s Yard, and so find- 
ing our way to the New Houses of Parliament. 




CHAPTER V. 


Sight-seeing — Westminster Hall, 

My emotions on first entering Westminster Hall, were scarcely 
inferior to those excited by the Abbey. Of course my first glance 
was towards the oaken roof, whose noble span, and elaborate con- 
struction, have been so largely eulogized, but which derives a richer 
glory than its material one, from the moral sublimity of the his- 
toric events, to which its venerable shadow has been lent. Be- 
neath this roof the Constitution of England has steadily and ma- 
jestically matured for centuries; and to this spot belongs the 
somewhat mysterious credit of an assimilating power, akin to that 
of digestion in the human system. Whatever has been the food, 
it has always managed to turn it into wholesome nutriment, and 
to add it to the solid substance of the British State in the shape 
of bone and sinew, or of veins and nerves. It has been the scene 
of violence and outrage, and of both popular and imperial tyran- 
ny. No matter! Out of all this evil has always come substan- 
tial good. The roof dates from Richard Second’s time; and scene 
the first is the usurpation of the fiery Bolingbroke. Here rose up 
that daring subject, amid astounded bishops and barons, and 
crossing himself broadly on the breast, profanely uttered the 
famous bravado — “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
and of the Holy Ghost, I, Henry of Lancaster, do challenge this 
reaume of Englande” — adding mysterious words, from which it is 
equally difficult to say on what grounds he did or did not rest his 
claims. Here old Sir Thomas More forfeited his head, for high 
treason against “ the best of princes,” as he had long called old 
Harry Eighth ; and here sat old Hal himself, at Lambert’s trial, 
interrupting every fresh rejoinder of the reformer, with the sav- 
age assurance — “Thou shalt burn, Lambert!” I looked towards 
the great window beneath which he sat — and, lo ! it was no longer 


REMINISCENCES. 


35 


a window, but an open way, just constructed for access to 
the New Houses of Parliament — a noble alteration, and a very 
speaking symbol too, in my opinion ; for thus, in the path of his- 
tory, and from the seat of law, will the future Senate of the Em- 
pire go to their responsible labors as stewards of the noblest in- 
heritance that exists among mankind. Let them think, as they 
pass, of Strafford and^ of Charles ; how in suffering and sorrow 
they contributed to the British people that distinguishing element 
of loyalty, which has rendered healthful their not less characteris- 
tic love of liberty. Too many, I fear, imbued with the superficial 
views of Macaulay, invest with sublimer associations the fanatical 
Court which tried and condemned their Sovereign, Here sat 
those bold, bad men ; and daring, indeed, was their work ; nor do 
I doubt that it has been over-ruled for good to England ; but then 
it should not be forgotten, that the subsequent history of progres- 
sive and rational freedom is far more directly the result of the 
wholesome resistance opposed by Church and Crown to the 
spirit of anarchy, than to anything in that spirit itself. Had the 
King of England been a Bourbon — had the Church of England 
been a Genevan or a Roman one, that flood must have washed 
all landmarks away : and the fabric of Constitutional Liberty, 
which now attracts the admiration of all thinking men, could 
never have been constructed. Honour, then, to the martyrs 
of Law and of Religion, who, beneath this roof, built up the 
only barrier that has turned back the turbulent waves of modem 
barbarism ! I stood, and thought of Charles, with sorrow for his 
grievous faults, but yet with gratitude for the manly recompense 
he offered here to a people whom he had unintentionally injured 
through their own antiquated laws, but whom he defended against 
the worse tyranny of lawless usurpation, by his majestic protest 
in this Hall, and by sealing it with his blood. Here, too, the 
seven bishops delivered the Church and State of England when 
they stood up against the treacherous son of Charles, and com- 
pleted the triumph of the Church by proving it as true to the peo- 
ple, as it had been to the throne, on the same foundation of im- 
mutable principle. This was the roof that rang with the shouts 
of vindicated justice, when those fathers of the Church were set 
free! I looked up, and surveyed every beam and rafter with 
reverence. The angels, carved in the hammer-beams, were look- 
ing placidly down, each one with his shield upon his breast, like 
the guardian spirits of a nation, true to itself and to ancestral 
faith and order. The symbol is an appropriate one ; for the frame- 


36 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


work of the British Constitution is like this roof of Richard in 
many respects, but in none more than this — that the strength and 
beauty of the whole are fitly framed together, with inseparable fea- 
tures of human wisdom and of divine truth ; the latter being always 
conspicuous, and investing all with reverend dignity and grace. 

The floor of the old Hall presents a less sentimental aspect, and 
might easily plunge imagination, by one step, into the ridiculous. 
Here are the barristers walking about with clients, and with each 
other, arm in arm, their gray wigs of divers tails, some set awry, 
and some strongly contrasted with black and red whiskers, giving 
them a ludicrous appearance; while their gowns, some of them 
shabby enough, are curiously tucked under the arm, or carelessly 
dangling about the heels, apparently an annoyance to the wearers, 
in either case. The several courts were in session, in chambers 
which open out of the hall, along its sides. I stepped into the 
Chancellor’s Court, where sat Lord Truro, listening, or perhaps 
not listening , to the eminent Mr. Bethell. His Lordship in his 
walrus wig, with a face proverbially likened to the hippopotamus, 
seemed to represent the animal kingdom, as well as that of which 
the mace and seal-bag, lying before him, were the familiar tokens. 
The court-room is very small, popular audiences being not de- 
sirable, and open doors being all that popular right can require. 
Here the same barristers looked far from ludicrous — their attire 
seemed to fit the place and its duties. Doubtless the influence of 
such things is an illusion, but nevertheless it is a useful one, and 
contributes to the dignity, which it only appears to respect. We 
need some such things in our Republic. Next I stepped into the 
Vice-Chancellor’s Court, and saw Sir J. L. Knight Bruce adminis- 
tering the law ; and here I was introduced to several eminent lawyers, 
whose cauliflower wigs covered a world of learning and of grave 
intelligence. Stepping into the Common Pleas, there sat in a row, 
Lord Chief Justice Jervis, and Justices Creswell, Williams and 
Talfourd. I could not but look with interest at the author of Ion , 
but in the disguise of his magistracy, I looked in vain for any fea- 
ture which I could identify with his portraits. In the Court of 
Queen’s Bench, Lord Campbell was presiding, with three others; 
in the Bail Court, I saw Justice Coleridge; and in the Court of 
Exchequer, Lord Chief Baron Pollock, with Barons Park, Platt 
and Martin. Thus, with the greatest facility, and in a very short 
space of time, can one see the most favoured sons of the British 
Themis, and gain a good idea of the dignity and close attention 
to business with which these courts are managed. The Supreme 


VICTORIA TOWER. 


37 


Court of our own country, is far inferior in appearance, although 
it is the only American Court which admits of any comparison 
with these, and yet it is allowed on all hands, that “ the law’s de- 
lay” in England is an intolerable grievance, and that the expense 
of obtaining justice, at these tribunals, is of itself a crying injustice. 

Sallying forth into the street, I went round to view the rising 
splendours of the Victoria Tower, the massive proportions of 
which almost dwarf those of the Abbey. It confuses the be- 
holder by the elaborate richness of its details, its profuse symbol- 
ism, and all the variety of its heraldic and allegorical decoration. 
When completed, it will give a new, but harmonious aspect, to 
the acres of sacred and princely architecture which spread 
around ; but these English builders are very slow in its construc- 
tion, and prefer that it should rise only ten feet a year, rather 
than hazard its chance of continuing forever. How differently we 
go ahead in America! This new palace of Westminster will still 
be many years in finishing, but it is worthy of the nation to let it 
thus grow after its own fashion. Alas ! one fears, however, that 
it is to be made the scene of the gradual taking down of the na- 
tion itself. It is too likely to prove the house in which John 
Bull will be worried to death by his own family. 

In company with a friend, I next “took water” at Westminster 
bridge, for a trip down the river. This silent highway is now as 
busy as the Strand itself — the spiteful little steamers that ply up 
and down, being almost as numerous and as noisy as the omnibusses. 
Very swiftly we glide along the river’s graceful bend, passing White- 
hall, Richmond Terrace, and the house lately occupied by Sir Rob- 
ert Peel ; shooting under Hungerford bridge, past old Buckingham 
house, and the Adelphi Terrace, and so under Waterloo bridge, 
to the Temple Gardens, where we land, and where I find my- 
self delighted with the casual survey of the different walks and 
buildings, and especially with the Temple Church. Emerging into 
Fleet street, choked with carts and carriages, here is Temple-bar! 
Passing under its arches, we are in the Strand, and so make our 
way to Charing-Cross. Having made a complete circuit, by land 
and water, I again went to Westminster bridge, and stepping into 
a steamer sailed up the river to Chelsea. Here we pass the river- 
front of the New Houses of Parliament; and granting that there 
is a monotony of aspect in the long stretch of the pile, as it rises 
from the water, I think it must be allowed that, when complete, 
with its towers and decorations, the whole, taking the Abbey also 
into view, will furnish the noblest architectural display in the 


38 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


world. Westminster bridge should be reconstructed, in harmony 
with the rest, and then, whoever may find fault with the scene, 
may be safely challenged to find its parallel for magnificence and 
imperial effect. 

And yet looking to the other side of the river, how far more 
attractive to my eye were the quiet gardens and the venerable 
towers of Lambeth! Its dingy brick, and solemn little windows, 
with the reverend ivy spreading everywhere about its walls, 
seemed to house the decent and comely spirit of religion itself: 
and one could almost gather the true character of the Church of 
England, from a single glance at this old ecclesiastical palace, 
amid the stirring and splendid objects -with which it is surrounded. 
Old, and yet not too old ; retired, and yet not estranged from men ; 
learned, and yet domestic ; religious, yet nothing ascetic ; and digni- 
fied, without pride or ostentation; such is the ideal of the Metro- 
political palace, on the margin of the Thames. I thought as I 
glided by, of the time when Henry stopped his barge just here to 
take in Archbishop Cranmer, and give him a taste of his royal 
displeasure : and of the time when Laud entered his barge at the 
same place, to go by water to the Tower, “ his poor neighbours of 
Lambeth following him with their blessings and prayers for his 
safe return.” They knew his better part. 

We had a fine view of Chelsea Hospital, and passed by Chelsea 
Church, famous for the monument of Sir Thomas More. We 
landed not far from this Church, and called upon Martin, whose 
illustrations of Milton and “Belshazzar’s Feast” have rendered 
him celebrated as a painter of a certain class of subjects, and in a 
very peculiar style. He was engaged on a picture of the Judg- 
ment, full of his mannerism, and sadly blemished by offences 
against doctrinal truth, but not devoid of merit or of interest. 
He asked about Allston and his Belshazzar, and also made in- 
quiries about Morse, of whose claim as the inventor of the Elec- 
tric Telegraph, he was entirely ignorant. Returning, we landed 
at Lambeth, and my friend left his card at the Archbishop’s; ob- 
serving, as we passed into the court, that we should find the door 
of the residence itself standing open, with a servant ready to re- 
ceive us, as we accordingly did. Such is the custom. 

We then crossed Westminster bridge, and went to "Whitehall, 
on foot, visiting the Banqueting-room, now a royal chapel. The 
Apotheosis of James the First, by Rubens, adorns the roof, but 1 
tried in vain to be pleased with it. The first question — “which 
is the fatal window through which King Charles passed to the 


THE BANQUETING-ROOM. 


39 


scaffold” — I asked quite in vain, for nobody seems to be entirely 
sure about it. The chapel is heavy, and unecclesiastical, although 
more like a sanctuary, in appearance, than the Sistine Chapel in 
the Vatican. We went into the court, or garden behind the 
Banqueting-house, to look at James Second’s statue, by Grinling 
Gibbons. It is in Roman costume, and defiled by soot and dust, 
and the peculiar pointing position of one of its hands, has given 
currency to a vulgar error, that it indicates the spot where the 
blood of Charles fell from the scaffold. A soldier mounts guard 
in this place, for it is yet regarded as a royal palace ; all beside is 
quiet, and I often returned to the spot during my residence in 
London, as one well fitted for meditation, recalling such historical 
associations as memory retained, and striving in vain to conceive 
it possible that here, in very deed, such thrilling scenes were en- 
acted two hundred years ago. Even now there is nothing ancient 
about the looks of Whitehall. It requires an effort to connect it 
at all with the past: and when one sees the vane upon its roof, 
and imagines it the very one to which James Second was always 
looking, while he prayed the Virgin and all the Saints to keep 
William of Orange off the coast, even the era of 1688 seems re- 
duced to a modem date, and stripped of all its character as 
something ancestral, and belonging to past time. I confess that 
in this garden of Whitehall, I awoke from an American illusion, 
and began to feel that two centuries is a very short period of 
time; just as afterward, on the Continent, the scale took another 
slide upwards, and taught me to feel that everything is modem 
which has happened since the Christian era. This discovery 
gives one a curious sensation, and I am not sure that I am the 
happier for having seen monuments of real antiquity, which have 
had the effect of freshening the comparative antiquity of England, 
and of reducing everything in America to the dead level of time 
present. I was happier when I visited the ruins of the old Fort 
on Lake George, and innocently imagined it a spot both ancient 
and august. 

My reader will think my day sufficiently full already, but I 
must not conclude without some reference to the pleasures of the 
evening. I drove out to Chelsea, where the pupils of St. Mark’s 
Training College performed the Oratorio of “Israel in Egypt.” 
The hail-stone chorus was given with great effect, and several of the 
solos and recitatives were creditably executed. I saw there, among 
others, Lord Monteagle, better known as Mr. Spring Rice, but was 
more pleased with an introduction to the head of the College, Mr. 


40 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


Derwent Coleridge, who showed me a very striking portrait of his 
father — “ the rapt one of the godlike forehead,” and made some 
feeling allusions to his brother Hartley, then lately dead. I saw 
also another member of this interesting family, Sara Coleridge, one 
of the cleverest of womankind. Returning to London, I stepped 
from the carriage at Hyde Park Corner, where chariots and 
wheels of every description were still rumbling incessantly, and 
where the gas-lamps made it light as day, though it was now 
eleven o’clock. I looked at Apsley-house, where the Iron Duke 
was then living, and so made my way along Piccadilly and St. 
James’ s-street, as pleasantly as if I had known them all my days, 
but thinking such thoughts as nothing but an American’s earliest 
experiences of London life can possibly inspire. 


CHAPTER VI 


Hyde Park — Excursion to Oxfordshire. 

My plan was to fix my head-quarters in London, and to make 
excursions thence into the various parts of the country which I 
desired to see. This enabled me to choose my times for being in 
the Metropolis, and also for visiting other places ; and I found it 
better, on many accounts, than the more usual method of seeing 
London all at once, and then going through the rest of England in a 
tour. I took lodgings in Bury-street, St. James’s, a time-hon- 
ored place for the temporary abode of strangers, and in all re- 
spects convenient for my purposes. On looking into Peter Cun- 
ningham . , I found I had unwittingly placed myself near the old 
haunts of several famous men of letters. Dean Swift lodged in 
this street in 1710, and Sir Richard Steele about the same time. 
Crabbe took his turn here in 1817, and here Tom Moore was 
sought out by Lord Byron, a few years earlier. Just round the 
corner, in Jermyn-street, Gray used to sojourn ; and there, too, 
Sir Walter Scott lodged for the last time in London, after his 
return from the Continent in 1832. Hard by, still lives old Samuel 
Rogers, and Murray’s famous publishing-house is but a few steps 
out of the way. I was, at first, a little provoked at Cunningham 
for getting up a book which tends to put the most stupid visitor of 
London on a footing with the man whose general reading has 
fitted him to enjoy it : but many little pleasures which he thus 
supplied me, by recalling things forgotten, quite altered my hu- 
mour towards him ; especially as I soon reflected that the traveller 
to whom he only restores such information, must always have the 
advantage over one who gains it for the first time, at second 
hand. 

I could now step into St. James’s Park, and freshen my appe- 
tite for breakfast, while enjoying its delightful air, and venerable 


'42 


IMPKESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


associations. I soon learned how to protract my walk, passing 
Buckingham Palace, up Constitution Hill, and so into Hyde 
Park — where one may spend the day delightfully, and almost 
fancy himself in the country. Indeed, stretching one’s rambles 
into Kensington Gardens, it is not easy to be moderate in the en- 
joyment, or to return without fatigue ; so vast is the extent of these 
successive ranges, and so much of England can one find, as it were, 
in the midst of London. Oh, wise and prudent John Bull, to ennoble 
thy metropolis with such spacious country-walks, and to sweeten 
it so much with country air ! Truly these lungs of London are 
vital to such a Babylon, and there is no beauty to be compared to 
them in any city I have ever seen. Talk of the Tuilleries — talk 
of the Champs Ely sees — you may throw in Luxembourg and Jardin 
des Plantes to boot, and in my estimation Hyde Park is worth the 
whole. I do not think the English are half proud enough of 
their capital, conceited as they are about so many things besides. 
They are ashamed of Trafalgar Square and some other slight mis- 
takes, and they always apologize for London, and wonder 
what a foreigner can find to please him, in the mere exterior of 
its immensity. But foreigner , forsooth ! I always felt that an 
Anglo-American may feel himself far more at home in London, 
than many who inhabit there. Who are the reigning family, but 
a race of Germans, never yet completely naturalized either in 
Church or State ? What is England to Prince Albert, except as 
he can use it for his own purposes'? But to me, and to many of 
my countrymen, it is as dear as heart’s blood ; every fibre of our 
flesh, every particle of our bone, and the whole fabric of our 
thought, as well as the vitalizing spirit of our holy religion, be- 
ing derived from the glorious Isle, in whose own tongue we call 
her blessed. It is not as unfilial to America, but only as faithful 
to the antecedents of my own beloved country, that I ask no 
Englishman’s leave to walk the soil of England with filial pride, 
and in some sense to claim “ a richer use of his,” than he himself 
enjoys. He dwells in it, and uses it of necessity for some ignoble 
purposes ; but I have no associations with the malt-tax, or with 
manufactories. England reveals herself to me only in her higher 
and nobler character, as the mother, and nurse, and glorious pre- 
ceptress of the race to which I belong. Hence, I say, it is only 
a true American who can feel the entire and unmixed sentiment 
and poetry of England. 

It was soon after my arrival in the Metropolis that I went, one 
afternoon, to see the display of horsemanship, in Hyde Park. 


ROTTEN-ROW. 


43 


Strange that the scene of so much aristocratic display should be 
known as “ Rotten-Row !” It is a road for saddle-horses exclu- 
sively, and veiy exclusive are the equestrians generally, who en- 
joy their delightful exercise in its pale. Here you see the best of 
horse-flesh, laden with the “porcelain-clay” of human flesh. 
The sides of the road are lined with pedestrians, some of whom 
touch their hats to the riders, and are recognized in turn ; but most 
of them look wishfully on the sport of others, as if they were con- 
scious that they were born to be nobody, and were unfeignedly sorry 
for it. Ha ! how dashingly the ladies go by, and how ambitiously 
their favored companions display their good fortune in attending 
them ! Here a gay creature rides independently enough, with 
her footman at a respectful distance. She is an heiress, and the 
young gallants whom she scarcely deigns to notice, are dying of 
love for her and her guineas. Here comes an old gentleman and 

his two beautiful daughters. It is Lord , and the elder of 

the twain is soon to be married, the fortunate expectant being a 
nobleman of large estates. We look in vain this afternoon for 
“ the Duke.” But very likely we shall see him before our walk 
is done. Yonder whirls a barouche, with outriders. It is the 
Queen and Prince Albert taking an airing. A Bishop comes 
along on horseback. “ It must be one of the Irish Bishops,” 
said the friend with whom I was walking, “ for I certainly have 
never seen him before.” 

I now saw the Crystal Palace for the first time, and scarcely 
looked at it at all. It was just what every body knows, from ten 
thousand pictures. I had a prejudice against it, at this time, 
heightened by the fact that many, whom I had met, had inno- 
cently taken it for granted that an American must, of course, 
have come to England to see the show. The idea of going to 
England to look at anything short of England itself! Besides, I 
supposed it a mere toy of Prince Albert’s — just the thing for a 
Dutch folly — or, like the Russian ice-palace, 

“ Work of imperial dotage, 

Shining, and yet so false !” 

I looked, therefore, and passed by. A fine walk we had to 
Kensington Gardens, and round by Bayswater, returning across 
Hyde Park. It was pleasant to see the good use to which these 
vast grounds are put by the People proper. Children and their 
nurses seem to take their fill of them. It was George the Second, 
I think, who asked Walpole what it would cost to fence in 


44 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


St. James’s Park, so as to keep the people out. “ Only three 
crowns” was the reply ; and the heavy Hanoverian learned an 
important lesson, as to the difference between British freemen, 
and the sort of people he had been wont to deal with, in his 
darling Electorate. 

One morning I attended a meeting of the Venerable S. P. G. 
The estimable Bishop of Bangor presided, and the ordinary 
monthly business was despatched. On this occasion, I was so 
happy as to meet with Lord Lyttleton, Mr. Beresford Hope, and 
others, whose names are familiar to American Churchmen, as 
identified with zeal and devotion to the noble work of Evangeli- 
zation. The American Church, and her relations with her nurs- 
ing Mother, were frequently alluded to; and, as an act of 
Christian recognition, I found myself admitted a corresponding 
member of the Society. Though I could not suppose the com- 
pliment a personal one, designed as it was in honor of the Orders 
of our Church, I felt it no small privilege to receive this humble 
share in the noble organization to which, under God, our Church 
owes its existence ; and I felt it the more, as being myself the 
descendant of a lowly but devoted Missionary, who died in the 
service of the Society. I was pleased with the earnest, but very 
quiet and affable spirit of this meeting. No show, nor swelling 
words ; and yet the spiritual interests of empires, and of national 
Churches, present and yet to be, the fruits of the Society’s labors, 
were deeply and religiously weighed, and dealt with. Beautiful 
tokens of the Society’s fruitfulness hung round the walls — por- 
traits of English Missionary Bishops, such as Heber, and Selwyn, 
and Broughton. These are its trophies. 

My first excursion into the country was made somewhat earlier 
than I had forecasted, in. accepting a kind invitation to Cuddes- 
don, from the Bishop of Oxford. This promised me the double 
pleasure of an immediate acquaintance with Oxford itself, and of 
a no less agreeable introduction to the eminent prelate, whose ele- 
vation to that See has so highly served the dearest interests of the 
Church, not in England only, but also throughout Christendom. 
The name of Wilberforce has received new lustre in the person 
of this gifted divine ; and certainly there was no one in England 
whom I more desired to see, for the sake of the interest inspired 
by public character and by published works. His known hospi- 
tality, and interest in visitors from all parts of the world, relieved 
me from surprise in receiving this unexpected attention, and I 
felt sure I should experience no disappointment in indulging the 


CUDDESDON. 


45 


confidence and affection inspired by such cordiality. Arriving in 
Oxford, I threw myself into a cab, and set off for the Bishop’s 
residence, about eight miles distant — taking a drive through 
High-street, in my way. Every object seemed familiar ; I could 
scarcely believe that X was, for the first time, looking at those 
venerable walls. Here was St. Mary’s — here All Souls — here 
Queen’s — and there is the tower of Magdalen. Even “ the Mitre ” 
and “ the Angel” looked like Inns, in which I had often “ taken 
mine ease.” A few gownsmen were loitering along the streets, 
but the town was quite deserted, it being the Easter holiday time. 
Here, at last, were the old gables of Magdalen ; and now I pass 
the Cherwell, and get a view of Magdalen-walks on one hand, 
and of Christ Church meadows on the other. And now a toll- 
gate, and now the country road — and I can scarce conceive that 
I have passed through Oxford, and that mine eyes have really 
seen it, and that fancy, and the pictures, are no longer my chief 
medium of knowing how it looks. How rapidly I have lost the 
use of helps on which I have depended for years ! Like the lame 
man healed, I can hardly believe that I have gone on crutches. 
But honestly, now — is the reality up to what I looked for? 
Thus I thought, and questioned, as I jogged along. 

Cuddesdon is the name of a little hamlet in Oxfordshire, on a 
wooded hill, overlooking a wide extent of country, besprinkled 
with many similar hamlets, and distinguished by a pretty parish 
Church, and the adjoining residence, or palace, of the Bishop. 
The residence is one of those rambling and nondescript houses, 
of ecclesiastical look, which one associates with English rural 
scenery ; blit of a class which it is difficult to characterize, ex- 
cept as something too modest for a nobleman’s seat, and something 
too lordly for a vicarage. The nearness of the parish Church 
might, indeed, suggest the idea of the parson’s abode — but what 
should a parish priest want of so large a house, or of the little 
private chapel which, on one side, makes a conspicuous part of 
the pile ? On the whole, one might conceive it the residence of 
a Bishop without being told the fact, or before descrying the arms 
of the See, over the entrance, encircled by the Garter, of which 
most noble Order, the Bishop is Chancellor. Nothing could ex- 
ceed the kindness and affability with which the estimable prelate 
received me, and made me welcome as his guest: his manner, at 
once dignified and engaging, sufficing immediately to make a vis- 
itor at home in his presence, however deeply impressed with rev- 
erence for his person. I esteemed it an additional privilege to be 


46 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


presented to the Bishop’s brother, Archdeacon Wilberforce, then 
just arrived at the palace from his own residence in Yorkshire: 
and I soon found, among the guests of the Bishop, several other 
persons of eminent position in society, from whose agreeable in- 
tercourse I derived the highest satisfaction. I had arrived on a 
Saturday, and, after a pleasant evening, the week was solemnly 
closed in the private chapel, with appropriate prayers. Here, 
twice every day, all the members of the household, the family, 
the guests, and the servants together, are assembled before the 
Lord their Maker, while the Bishop, like a patriarch, assisted by 
his chaplains, offers the sacrifices of prayer and thanksgiving, and 
sanctifies his house. It was beautiful, on one occasion, to see 
such a household together receiving the Holy Eucharist, and it 
was good to participate in the solemnity. The sanctity of my 
privilege, as the guest of such a family, forbids any further allu- 
sion to the delightful scenes of domestic piety of which I was so 
confidingly made a sharer ; but I cannot withhold a tribute to the 
character of a true Bishop, who has incidentally enabled me to 
testify of at least one English prelate, thate“ he serves God with 
all his house,” and makes that service the one thing indispensable 
and most important, in all the distributions of private life, its 
kindly offices, and endearing charities. 

I accompanied his Lordship, next day, into Oxford, where he 
preached at St. Ebbe’s to a very large congregation. This 
Church is very plain and countryfied — astonishingly so for Oxford ; 
but the worshippers were devout and earnest in their attention. 
The sermon was suited to the Service for the day, and I was not 
disappointed in the manner, *nor yet in the matter, of it. The 
Bishop is a truly eloquent man. His voice is sweet, and often 
expressive of deep feeling, or of tender emotion. He uses more 
action than most English preachers, or rather he has much less of 
inactivity in his preaching. Occasionally he looks off from his 
manuscript, and launches into warm extemporaneous address. 
Altogether, I regard him as very happily combining the advan- 
tages of the English and American pulpits. More than any other 
of whom I know anything, he unites the delicacy and refinement 
of the former with the earnestness and practical effect of the 
latter. 

After a short visit to Wadham College, where I had the 
pleasure of meeting the late Vice-Chancellor of the University, 
Hr. Symmons, we returned to Cuddesdon. Our road lay through 
the village of Wheatley, where the bells were chiming for service 


AN EPITAPH. 


47 


as we passed. Ascending tlie hills, we alighted and walked ; and, 
by and by, the good Bishop, pointing to a little hamlet not far off, 
said to me, “ there lived, once upon a time, a man named John 
Milton. There is Forest Hill — there is Shotover — and walking 
over these hills, he composed Allegro and Penseroso .” How it 
thrilled my soul, as I listened to his words, and looked delightedly 
over the scenes to which he directed my attention ! We soon 
reached Cuddesdon, and attended divine service in the parish 
Church, which was filled chiefly with a rustic people, many of 
them in hob-nailed shoes, and brown frocks, neatly arrayed, but 
in the manner of a peasantry, such as we know nothing about in 
America. The chancel of the Church has been lately restored 
by the Bishop, and is in excellent taste and keeping throughout. 
The Church itself is a cruciform one, originally Norman, but 
much altered, and in parts injured, during successive ages. Its 
aisles are early English ; but many details, in perpendicular, have 
been introduced in different portions of the pile. Here and there 
in the wood-work are touches of Jacobean re-modeling. Still, 
altogether, it is a most interesting Church, and it afforded me 
great pleasure to worship there, with the rustics and their Bishop, 
and with a pretty fair representation of the divers ranks of 
English society, all uniting, happily and sweetly, in their ances- 
tral worship. It was a delicious day, and the glimpses of sky and 
country, which we gained through the portals and windows, were 
additional inspirers of gratitude to God. After service, the 
Bishop led me round the Church, and showed me the grave where 
one of his predecessors had laid a beloved child. A stone lay 
upon it, containing the exquisite lament of Bishop Lowth for hif 
daughter, which I remembered to have seen before, but which 
never seemed half so touching and pathetic as now, while Bishop 
Wilberforce repeated it from the chiseled inscription : — 

“ Cara Maria, Vale ; at veniet felicius sevum 
Quando iterum tecum, sim modo dignus, ero : 

Cara redi, Iseta turn dicam voce, paternos 
Eja age in amplexus, cara Maria, redi ! ” 

That evening, as we sat at the Bishop’s table, the bells of Cud- 
desdon pealed forth a curfew chime. Oh, how sweet! A lady 
then reminded me that Cuddesdon was one of the “ upland ham- 
lets,” alluded to in I! Allegro , — 

“ Where the merry bells ring round, 

And the jocund rebecks sound.” 


48 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


And so happily closed my day, that, but for some reverting 
thoughts to the dear home I had left behind me, I must say I 
went as sweetly to sleep, in the spell of its delights, as 
did poor Pilgrim in that chamber of his Progress, from whence 
he was sure of a view of the Delectable Mountains as soon as he 
should awake in the morning. 


CHAPTER VII. 


Miltonian ramble — Forest-hill , etc. 

Horton, in Buckinghamshire, is supposed to have supplied to 
Milton the imagery of the Allegro and Penseroso , chiefly because 
he there composed those delightful poems, in which the very 
essence of what is most poetical in the scenery and rural life of 
England is so admirably condensed. But if it could be shown 
that, so early in the maiden life of Mary Powell as when these 
poems appeared, she had become the cynosure of Milton’s eyes, 
and had attracted him to Forest-Hill as a visitor, it might, one 
would suppose, be very fairly maintained, that this place alone 
answers, in all respects, to the demands of the poetry in question. 
It may at least be said with justice, that when the poet visited 
Forest-Hill with his bride, he realized more perfectly there than 
anywhere else, the rural delights which he has so exquisitely de- 
tailed ; and which he has invested at one time with the sprightly 
aspect in which Nature reveals herself to youth and health, and, 
at another, with the more sentimental beauties which she wears 
before the eye of refined and meditative maturity. However, it 
was not for me to settle such nice questions. Forest-Hill lies 
not far from Milton, where the poet’s grandfather lived, and from 
which comes his name; and Shotover-Forest, of which the grand- 
father was ranger, is part of the same vicinage. It is very pro- 
bable that the Powells were early friends of the poet, and that 
his youthful imagination was wont to haunt the whole hill-country 
thereabout, in honour of the lady’s charms to whom he afterwards 
gave his hand. Such at least was my creed, for the time, when 
I enjoyed a delightful walk over the scenes in the company of in- 
telligent persons whose remarks often heightened not a little the 
extraordinary pleasures of the day. 

Among the Bishop’s guests, at breakfast, there was the usual 

3 


50 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


planning of occupations for tlie morning, and I heard with great 
satisfaction the proposal of a walk to Forest-Hill, in which it was 
supposed I might be glad to share. Our party was soon made up, 

consisting of the Archdeacon, the Rev. Mr. J , Sir C 

A , a young Etonian closely related to the Bishop’s family, and 

the Bishop’s youngest son. After some preliminary reconnoiterings 
about the hamlet of Cuddesdon itself, (of which the adjoining 
slopes and meadows furnish very pretty views,) off we went, well 
shod and with sturdy staves in hand, and in all respects well- 
appointed for an English ramble; which implies everything re- 
quisite for thorough enjoyment of the diversion. We stretched 
our legs, as Walton would say, over Shotover-Hill, encountering 
a variety of rustic objects in the fields and farms; here a fold of 
sheep, and there a hedge, and again a ditch, or a turnip-field, but 
everything in its turn was of interest to me as presenting, in some 
form or other, a contrast to similar objects in my own country, 
the advantage being generally in favor of England, so far as the 
picturesque is concerned. I can indeed think of many a walk 
in America, incomparably more interesting than this in the char- 
acter of it scenery ; but what I mean is, that the same kind of 
country with us, would have been almost devoid of interest. 
Thus, instead of presenting field after field, cultivated like a gar- 
den, beautifully hedged and exhibiting every mark of careful 
husbandry ; or a succession of green pastures, in which fine cat- 
tle, and the whitest and fattest of sheep were disposed in a man- 
ner entirely suitable to the painter ; or instead of a succession of 
views of the most pleasing variety ; here a hamlet and spire, and 
there a neat cottage, and there a lordly mansion among trees, 
and there a snug farmhouse: the same number of miles -with us, 
over a slightly undulating country, devoted to pasturage and 
farming, would scarcely have offered a single scene on which the 
eye could rest with satisfaction. At length, we reached Shoto- 
ver-Lodge, which has unfortunately been rebuilt within the last 
hundred years, but the original of which supplies the ideal ol 
those famous lines in L' Allegro — • 

“ Russet lawns and fallows gray 
Where the nibbling flocks do stray ; 

Towers and battlements it sees 
Bosomed high in tufted trees, 

Where perhaps some beauty lies, 

The cynosure of neighboring eyes.” 


FOREST-HILL CIIURCII. 


51 


Next we descended into a daisied meadow, and looked for the 
plowman and the milkmaid, as it was yet too early for the tanned 
haycock, or the mower whetting his scythe. Here the Archdea- 
con recalled to my mind a criticism of Warton’s, which I had 
quite forgotten, asking me if I remembered the meaning of the 
lines — 

“ And every shepherd tells his tale , 

Under the hawthorn in the dale,” 

in which the idea is not that of narrative, or eclogue, but the 
more English one of Thyrsis turning the sheep out of fold for 
the day, and counting them, one by one ; that is, telling the tale , 
like the tale of brick exacted by the Egyptians, as we read in 
Genesis. Many such comments from my companions gave great 
inspiration to the ramble, which brought us at last up the sides 
of Forest-Hill itself, where we first encountered some cottages of 
surprising neatness, inhabited by thrifty tenants, who farmed a 
few acres of their own hiring. Here Sir C , like a true Pro- 

tectionist, stopped to ask a few questions of Hodge and his family 
about the prospects of “ the British farmer,” and the practical re- 
sults of Cobdenism ; and I fancied, from the interest taken in the dis- 
closures by my young friend from Eton, that the lads who now play 
cricket on the banks of the Thames, under “ the antique towers,” 
are not unlikely, at some future day, to maintain the rights of the 
landed gentry, with the same primary reference to agriculture 
which so largely distinguishes Mr. Disraeli. And now we came 
to the little Church of Forest-Hill, where, for aught I know, 
Milton was married to the daughter of the good old cavalier, but 
where he could not have been surrounded by a very great crowd 
of rejoicing friends upon the happy occasion, as the sacred place 
will scarcely contain threescore persons at a time. It has no 
tower, but only one of those pretty little gable-cots for the bell, 
so familiar of late in our own improving architecture of country 
Churches. The altar-window is near the road, and the bell-gable 
is at the other extremity, surmounting the slope of the land, on 
a pretty terrace of which, embosomed among the trees and shrubs, 
is situated the parsonage. The little Church itself is of the early 
English period, but has repairs in almost every variety of pointed 
style, and some in no style at all. It has had very little aid 
from the builder, however, for nearly a century. In the early 
Caroline period, or a little before the date of Milton’s marriage, 
it w;us probably new-roofed and put into good order, possibly as 
the result of injunctions from the King and Council, with some 


52 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


of whom, “the filtliy-lying of Churches” was not reckoned a 
proof of growing godliness in the nation. Accordingly I noticed 
on one of the tie-beams of the roof, the inscription, C. 1630 R., 
and again on the door, C. R. 1635. In the churchyard is a re- 
markably fine holly tree, and, what is still more interesting, the 
grave of Mickle, the translator of the Lusiad. Here he lies, ig- 
norant alike that his Lusiad is almost forgotten, and that his little 
ballad of Cumnor-Hall has reproduced itself in the world-famous 
story of Kenilworth. We ventured to call at the parsonage, 
where we were very courteously shown the parish-register, a lit- 
tle old parchment book, in which I observed the entry of Mary 
Powell’s christening, and also the record of burial of persons 
brought in after such and such a fight, in the Civil Wars. In a 
nice little cottage hard by, we found an old dame teaching half- 
a-dozen children ; and if any one marvels at my mentioning so in- 
significant a fact, let me say that it was one of the most pleasing 
of my day’s adventures to visit this school, which seemed to be 
the original of many a queer cut, familiar from the painted story- 
books of the nursery. The cottage seemed to contain but one 
room, the dame’s bed being turned up against the wall, and neat- 
ly concealed by a check curtain. The windows were casements, 
with diamond panes — and the walls were so thick, that the win- 
dow-sill afforded space for several boxes of plants, set there for 
the sunlight. The floor was so neat, that it might have served 
for a table without offence to the appetite; sundry shelves shone 
with polished pewter and tin ; the whitewash, without and with- 
in, was fresh and sweet; and sundry vines were trained about 
the door. The little scholars, evidently the children of laboring 
people, were tidy in their appearance too, and they sat, each upon 
his stool, with A-B-C-Book held demurely before the nose, and 
eyes asquint at the visitors. Every thing convinced me that the 
old dame was a strict disciplinarian, whose “ moral suasion” con 
sisted in the rod of Solomon, fairly displayed before the eyes of 
the urchins, and no doubt faithfully used. And yet nothing 
could exceed the good-nature and propriety of her appearance, 
except the humility with which she seemed to regard the literary 
pretensions of her academy. Good-bye, dame! Reverend is 
thy little starched cap, and dignified thy seat in the corner of the 
chimney. True, they teach greater things hard by, at Oxford ; but 
thou art an humble co-worker with its ablest Dons and Doctors: 
and happy are the children, who have only to peep out of their 
school-house door to see the top-rounds of the ladder, about the 


milton’s well. 53 

foot of which they climb ; even the towers of Christ Church, and 
of Magdalen, and the dome of the Radcliffe Library. 

“Yes,” said one of my companions — “when the Great Tom of 
Oxford rings its hundred-and-one of a summer evening, then, 
standing on this hill, you will get the meaning of Milton’s 
lines: — 

“ ‘ Oft, on a plat of rising ground 
I hear the far-off curfew sound, 

Over some wide-watered shore, 

Swinging slow, with sullen roar.’* 


To which I ventured to object, that although the heavy sound of a 
bell like the Great Tom would alone justify the description in the 
last of these lines, I saw nothing in the view before me, to ac- 
count for the allusion to a “ wide- watered shore.” This, how- 
ever, was met by the assurance that the little rivulet, which 
might be seen in the mead, was not unfrequently lost in a 
spreading inundation, and that at such times nothing could be 
more descriptive than the very words of the poem ! This, I was 
bound to admit as satisfactory. And now I made a discovery of 
my own. Hard by the dame’s cottage I found a spring, over- 
arched with substantial masonry, and adorned with ivy. I 
suggested that John Milton had certainly tasted of that water, 
for that the well was antique, and evidently designed for the use 

of a gentleman’s household; to which Sir C , who is a judge 

of such matters, at one assented, pronouncing it of the period of 
Mary Powell’s youth, and paying my discovery the practical 
compliment of producing his sketch-book, and drawing it on the 
spot. A similar drawing he made of the Powell house itself, to 
which we now proceeded. It presents the remains of a much 
larger house, but even in its reduced dimensions, is quite sufficient 
for a comfortable farmer. Still the rose, the sweet-briar and 
eglantine are redolent beneath its casements; the cock, at the 
barn-door, may be seen from any of its windows ; and doubtless 
the barn itself is the very one in which the shadowy flail of 
Robin Goodfellow threshed all night, to earn his bowl of cream. 
In the house itself we were received by the farmer’s daughter, 
who looked like “the neat-handed Phillis” herself; although her 
accomplishments were, by no means, those of a rustic maiden, for 
she evidently had entered fully into the spirit of the place, and 
imbued herself with that of the poetry in no mean degree. We 
were indebted to her for the most courteous reception, and were 


54 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


conducted by her into several apartments of the house, concern- 
ing all of which she was able to converse very intelligently. In 
the kitchen, with its vast hearth and over-hanging chimney, we 
discovered tokens of the good-living for which the old manor- 
house was no doubt famous in its day : and in its floor, was a 
large stone said to have been removed from a room, now destroy- 
ed, which was formerly the poet’s study. The garden, in its 
massive wall, and ornamented gateway, and an old sundial, re- 
tains some trace of its manorial dignities in former times — when 
the maiden Mary sat in her bower, thinking of her inspired lover ; 
or when, perchance, the runaway wife sighed and wept here over 
a letter brought by the post, commanding Mistress Milton to re- 
turn to her duty in a dark corner of London, on pain of her 
husband’s displeasure, and of being made the heroine of a book 
on divorce ! Our fair conductress next called our attention to 
an outhouse, now degraded to the office of domestic brewing, but 
which she supposed to be the “still, removed place” of Penseroso; 
and in proof of the nobler office to which it had been originally 
designed, she pointed out the remains of old pargetting , or orna- 
mental plaster-work, in its gables. The grace with which she 
used this term of art, would have rejoiced the soul of an ecclesi- 
ological enthusiast. Moreover, she brought forth a copy of Sir 
William Jones’ Letters, and pointed out to us his description of 
the place, proving that our researches on Forest-Hill can make 
no pretensions to originality, though certainly he could not boast 
of the advantages we derived from the illustrative powers of our 
hostess. It was her idea that the house had originally been a 
convent ; and this notion, she said, receives force from the lines : — 

4 ‘ Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, 

Sober, steadfast, and demure,” etc — 

imagery, which, in her opinion, could only be suggested by the 
associations of the spot. Many a worse theory in literature has 
been built upon foundations quite as slender ; and so without 
committing ourselves to this interpretation, but with many thanks 
for the hint, and for all her civility, we respectfully bade adieu 
to the house, and its respectable occupants, with all necessary 
apologies for our intrusion. 

Next morning, when I met Sir C at breakfast, he startled 

me by throwing upon the table two accurate and beautiful draw- 
ings of the well and mansion at Forest-Hill. He had produced 
them from the little sketches which I had seen him take upon the 


SIR WILLIAM JONES. 


55 


spot ; and as tliej must have been made either very late at night, 
or /ery early in the morning, they were pleasing proofs of his kind 
disposition to gratify and oblige me, by the gift of a memorial of 
our Miltonian day, that must long afford me the additional pleasure 
of renewing its associations with him. In a few hours I bade 
farewell to Cuddesdon; but it so turned out that some of the ac- 
quaintances there formed, were subsequently renewed in other 
places, and in travel on the Continent. Nor can I forbear to mention 
with gratitude, that the kind attentions of the Bishop to his guest, 
so far from ceasing when I had taken leave, were continued 
through the whole period of my sojourn in England, and fre- 
quently opened to me unexpected sources of benefit and enjoy- 
ment. 

But I must not conclude without observing, with reference 
to Forest-Hill, that Sir William Jones declares its groves to have 
been long famous for nightingales; while, at the same time, by 
distinctly recognizing the “ distant mountains that seem to sup- 
port the clouds,” as part of the view to be gained from the sum- 
mit of the hill, he has done much to identify the spot as indeed 
the true scene of the poems. It is allowed that nothing like 
mountains are to be seen from Horton ; but Sir William fully 
justifies the allusion, as suited to Forest-Hill, while at the same 
time he removes all ground for the hackneyed complaint, that 
this reference to mountains is a blemish to the poem, as being 
wholly unwarranted by the character of English scenery. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


Oxford — New College — Magdalen. 

Now came cy first- day in Oxford — a day depended upon from 
boyhood, and «rom which I had expected more quiet and medi- 
tative delight than trom any other enjoyment whatever. To 
every one who nas made English literature and English history a 
study, I need not explain why. But Oxford has not only a lit- 
erary prestige : it is so intimately connected with the history of 
our holy religion, that all other associations receive, as it were, 
an unction from this. Every college has its history; every 
stone, and every tree, and every turf, suggest ennobling reflections, 
as memorials of departed worth, but the hallowed memory of 
Martyrs sheds over all a deep and sober glory, that awes while it 
inspires. I know that our age has seen men, aye, and Oxford 
men, who could sneer at the reverend names of Cranmer, and 
Latimer, and K-idley : but who that has a heart not absolutely 
dead to generous emotion, but must feel a warm re-action in view 
of such impotent malignity “? Who, in the days of the apostate 
and the dupe, can go to Oxford without blessing God that other 
days have left us the blessed example of men faithful unto death, 
and triumphing in the fire 1 ? 

I stopped at “ The Angel,” but it was not long before I found 
myself hospitably taken up, and transported to the house of a 
friend in the Turl, next door to Exeter College. My kind enter- 
tainer was one widely known throughout Anglo-Saxondom, not 
only by the books which he publishes, but by those also which 
he writes : and to whose elementary works on architecture we, in 
America, are indebted for about all that is piopularly known of 
that beautiful art and science. As it was now vacation, I had 
an opportunity of seeing Oxford first, as it were, in scene, with- 
out the dramatis personae ; and no one is more capable than my 
kind host, of explaining the antiquarian and architectural glories 


WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM. 57 

of Oxford to a stranger. As he courteously gave me his valua- 
ble time, I made my primary rounds under his guidance. 

As I came into Oxford, from Cuddesdon, I heard the bells of 
St. Mary’s in full peal, and experienced an exhilarating emotion 
that greatly heightened my impressions. After my arrival in the 
Turl — a name which indicates that the street was once a country- 
lane, guarded by a turnstile — I took my second walk through the 
city, my first having been on the previous Sunday, passing from 
St. Ebbe’s to Wadham College, with the Bishop. Now, begin- 
ning with New College and the glories of William of Wykeham, 
I felt a new impulse of wonder and admiration, as if the half 
had not been told me. In vain does the pedant complain of the 
architecture here displaying the genius of that munificent founder, 
and tell us that it marks a decline from the elevation of the 
decorated period ; for who can but see, in what is called decline, 
something much more like an elaborate adaptation of sacred art 
to academic purposes, exhibiting high invention, and a sense of 
the fitting and appropriate, which proves a taste truly refined, and 
a fancy rich and creative ? So, at least, it strikes me ; and the 
moral element is not less observable, the very stones seeming vital 
and instinct with the designer’s great soul and spirit. Thus the 
gateways, as has been well remarked, exhibit strength and utility, 
with little to advertise what is within ; the domestic part is sim- 
ple, and chaste and homelike ; the hall bespeaks a generous hos- 
pitality, and suggests the social and civilizing character with 
which religion invests the table and the meal, and elevates it to 
a feast of reason ; while, at last, the chapel is full of divine ma- 
jesty, and commands abasement of self in the house of God, and 
at the gate of heaven. Wykeham was, for his day, a reformer, 
as really as Wyckliffe, and nothing is more certain than that the 
true Anglican alone has a right to glory in his achievements. 
They mark a period of contest with the papacy, every step of 
which contributed to the ultimate liberation of the Church of 
England from its Italian yoke, and they were perfected in that 
English spirit, against which the Pope was always at war, and 
which late apostates from our Nicene faith detest and anathema- 
tize as schism. True it is that we differ with Wykeham and 
Waynefleet in many items of opinion and practice, in which they 
were no wiser than their times ; but they are one with us, histor- 
ically, in the communion of the Church of England, in the 
maintenance of her individuality and independence, and in the 
confession of the Nicene Creed, as the authorized symbol of 

3 * 


53 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


Christendom. These impressions, forced upon me within these 
walls, and growing on me every day that I spent in England, re- 
turned with ten-fold power after I had seen the Continent, and 
again beheld English Churches and colleges, and felt their essen- 
tial antagonism to what is Italian and Tridentine, and their 
almost physical tendency towards the production of such a 
Church, in their ultimate result, as the Anglican Communion is 
at this day, and is likely to be in future. Let us depend upon it, 
and act upon it, as a fact in the providence and design of God, 
that the Church of England, from the first day she was planted 
until now, has been, as it were, “ the Church in the wilderness 
retaining always a primitive and individual element, and preparing 
for eventual manifestation in the pure glory of the Bride, the 
great adversary of the harlot, with whose painted front and 
virago fury she now patiently contends. 

Although the modern parts of the College are conspicuous 
from the gardens, I found in them a fascination which I can 
hardly account for or describe. The ancient city walls, with 
their bastions and defences, are still preserved as the boundaries 
of the premises, and possibly it is to them, with their embower- 
ing verdure and isolating effect, that one owes a feeling of 
enchanting seclusion and quietude. Here my trans- Atlantic 
eyes first beheld the loop-holes and embrasures of mediaeval for- 
tification; first grasped the idea of intramural siege, and bow- 
and-arrow fight ! It struck me overwhelmingly with a sense of 
loss and mental injury, that I should have known only faintly, 
and from books, what thus the Oxford student receives in passive 
impressions of reality — the ennobling idea of our connections 
with the past, and its paternal relations to us. To see every day 
the walls on which one’s forefathers, ages ago, patrolled in ar- 
mor, or from which they aimed the cross-bow; to walk and 
study and repose habitually under their shadow ; to have always, 
in sport and in toil, in sorrow and in joy, such monuments of 
time and history about one : how ought it not to refine and ma- 
ture the character ; and make a man feel his place between two 
eternities ; and inspire him to live well the short and evil day in 
which, if ever, what he does for futurity must be done quickly, 
and with might ! 

But now, somehow or other, we emerged into “ The Slipe,” 
where one gets a fine external view of old wall, chapel and 
tower. But I was impatient to see Magdalen College, and Addi- 
son s Walk, and thither we bent our way. Passing under its new 


MAGDALEN COLLEGE. 


59 


and beautiful gateway, I stood before that effective grouping of 
architectural detail which makes up the western front. Here 
are tower, turret and portal, chapel, lodge, and non-descripfc 
doorway ; here are great window, and oriel, and all sorts of win- 
dows besides ; and trees and vines lending grace to all ; and here 
is that queer little hanging pulpit, for out-door preaching, which, 
with all the rest, always made Magdalen, to my boyish taste, the 
very Oxford of Oxford. And I am not sure that this notion 
was a wrong one ; for now that my ideal has received the cor- 
rections of experiment, what college shall I prefer to Magdalen % 
Perfect and entire is Wadham, where, in the warden’s lodge, I 
first broke academic bread ; lordly is .Christ Church, with its 
walks and its quadrangles ; lovely is Merton, as it were the sister 
of Christ Church, and gracefully dependent; New College is 
majestic ; All Souls worthy of princes : but Magdalen alone is 
all that is the charm of others, compendious in itself ; yielding 
only a little to each rival in particulars, but in the whole excel- 
ling them all. 

In Addison’s walk I gave myself up to delightful recollections 
of the Spectator, and marvelled not that the thorough-bred 
Englishman of that bewitching collection, was the product, in 
part, of such a spot as this! Here that great refiner of our 
language breathed the sentiment of his country, and nourished 
the spirit that knew how to appreciate her, and how to transfuse 
the love of her into others. I defy the most stupid visitor to feel 
nothing of enthusiasm here ! I made the circuit of the meadow, 
surveyed the bridge over the Cherwell, took a view of Merton- 
fields and Christ Church meadows ; and, after meeting with the 
late Vice-President, Dr. Bloxam, and encountering in him a 
cordiality of reception which I can never forget, concluded by 
attending prayers in the chapel. I was placed in a stall, and 
had as favorable a position, for sight and sound, as I could have 
desired. The service was sung throughout — although, as it was 
now vacation, comparatively few were in attendance besides the 
singers themselves. I observed that here, as in other college- 
chapels, the chapel itself is the choir of a cruciform Church, the 
ante-chapel is the transept, and the nave is wanting. Add the 
nave, that is, and you have a cathedral, or minster, complete. 
In the ante-chapel of Magdalen, there are always persons de- 
voutly following the service ; and although they can see nothing, 
they hear it with very sweet effect, the chaunt being softened by 
their separation from the singers, while it is articulate and alto- 
gether devotional. 


60 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


Magdalen became my home in Oxford, for there I more fre- 
quently walked, and worshipped, and visited than elsewhere — 
and there, for a time, I was lodged ; while in its grounds I be- 
came a frequent and familiar guest ; taking, in grateful confidence, 
the repeated invitations which I received from Dr. Bloxam and 
other members of the College, although obliged to decline far 
more of their kindness than I could possibly accept. During 
this first visit I dined in the Hall, meeting a number of eminent 
members of the University, and greatly enjoying their conversa- 
tion. This superb Hall is lined with portraits of the distin- 
guished sons of Magdalen. As I sat at meat, Addison’s portrait 
was just before me, and at the end of the Hall was the portrait 
of one whom I am accustomed to reverence even more, as the 
pattern of the true Anglican pastor, the pure and holy Ham- 
mond. All around hung the venerable pictures of great and 
historical personages, who have illustrated their college in becom- 
ing illustrious themselves. Among such worthies, none can for- 
get Bishop Horne, who, although he died in 1792, was the 
immediate predecessor in the presidency of Dr. Routh, the 
present incumbent, now very nearly a hundred years of age. 
This venerable and extraordinary man is, indeed, as was often 
said to me — “ the greatest wonder of Oxford.” 

But how many are the sources of delight in this august Uni- 
versity ! Even the meanest are not unworthy of note. At din 
ner, in the Hall, for example, I remarked, that the queer old 
mug from which I was drinking, was the gift to the College of 
“ Robert Greville, second son of Lord Brooke and when we 
adjourned to the common-room, for fruit and conversation, the 
traditions of the spot, which were recounted, were all of historical 
interest. In this very room, that sturdy champion of his College, 
Bishop Hough, by boldly resisting the Commissioners of the 
Popish J ames, with their three troops of horse at the door, paved 
the way for the Revolution of 1688 ; and yet no College in Ox- 
ford was so much distinguished for its subsequent loyalty to the 
house of Stuart as Magdalen — following, in this, the example of 
Bishop Ken and the non-jurors, who liked the usurpation of Wil- 
liam quite as little as the oppression of James. A Jacobite 
goblet was put into my hand, bearing the inscription Jus suum 
cuique , which admirably apologizes for the position of the Col- 
lege, in both these historical issues ; while, on the other side, is 
the legend, to which I gave emphatic utterance, as I drank — 
Vivat Magdalena ! After an hour in the common-room, we re- 
turned to the Hall, where the choristers were rehearsing the 


ACADEMIC CEREMONY. 


61 


anthem for the next service, and where I heard not a little sweet 
singing during the evening. The fire was brightly blazing in its 
chimneys ; and the light and shade of the vast apartment, with 
its pictures reflecting the playful glare from painted armor, or 
robes of lawn, and academic scarlet, to say nothing of the visages 
of ancient worthies clad in such array, very much heightened the 
effect of the scene. 

Before returning to London, besides making a general survey 
of, the city, I became somewhat more particularly ac juainted 
with Christ Church, its hall, and common-room : and with its 
chapel, which is the cathedral. In Oriel College, also, I passed 
some pleasant moments, and drank of the College beer, from an 
old traditional cup of the time of Edward Second. I also wor- 
shipped at St. Mary’s, and did the same at St. Thomas’s, a pic- 
turesque and venerable fabric in the outskirts of the city, near 
the site of Oseney Abbey. Here the late restorations were very 
fine; and, although it is a parochial Church only, the service 
was sung. I observed a somewhat excessive external devotion 
on the part of a few of the worshippers, which struck me unfa- 
vorably ; but, perhaps, in times of less dubious allegiance to the 
Church, I should not have noticed it as peculiarly pharisaical. 
I paid a visit to the Bodleian and the Picture Gallery, and inspected 
the architecture of “ the Schools and, finally, saw some cere- 
monies in the Convocation House, which were very well worth 
seeing, as illustrating the academic system of Oxford. Several 
masters-of-arts were made, the Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Plumptre, 
presiding, in his scarlet robes ; but all was done with an entire 
absence of pomp, and in presence of very few spectators. I was 
the more surprised, as this was the first day of Easter-term ; and, 
from the general peal from towers and steeples, one might have 
supposed it a great day. Even the ceremony of admitting the 
new proctors, and the Latin speech of one of them going out, 
seemed hardly to have any interest for the academics, or others. 
The Heads of Houses were assisting, and looked well; and, 
when all was over, there was a procession, the Vice-Chancellor 
going in state, solemnly preceded by the bedels, with their maces— 
profanely called pokers by the undergraduates. There was, how- 
ever, no strut, but rather the contrary. You saw, at a glance, 
that all this was the mechanical routine of the University, done 
as business ; and so regarded by every body concerned. It is 
only when men are acting that they become sublimely ridiculous. 

This remark applies to the May-morning celebration, on top 
of the Tower of Magdalen. To read of it, one would think it must 


62 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


be a romantic, or enthusiastic, piece of absurdity : but done, as 
a matter of course, and in continuity, year after year, from 
ancient times, it has, on the spot, a very different effect. The 
custom dates from 1501, the first year of the 16th century, 
when, in gratitude for a royal benefaction from Henry VII., a 
Hymn to the Holy Trinity, with the Collect of Trinity Sunday, 
and other solemnities, were instituted as a commemoration, to be 
celebrated on the first day of May. The produce of two acres 
of land, part of the royal gift, was at the same time to be dis- 
tributed between the President and fellows. It now goes to pay 
for an entertainment supplied to the choristers, in the College- 
hall, at which a silver grace-cup is passed around with great 
formality. The boys have a complete holiday, moreover, and 
from sunrise to sunset are set free from College-bounds ; but it 
must be understood that the boys here spoken of are those of the 
school and choir — not the undergraduates, of whom there are 
precious few at Magdalen — which is not an educational establish- 
ment, but a society of educated men, devoted to academic pur- 
suits. But I suppose I need not explain the difference between 
such Colleges and our own, now so generally understood. To 
remedy what is considered by the progress-men a crying evil, 
and to turn the splendid revenues of Magdalen to the largest ben- 
efit of the largest number, is one of the professed purposes of the 
late Royal Commission : but, unfortunately, no confidence can be 
placed in its professions. Were the thing in the hands of true 
Churchmen, and relieved from the tinkering of Lord John Rus- 
sell, there can be no doubt that a competent and moderate Univer- 
sity reform might vastly augment the resources of the Anglican 
Communion, and furnish a noble and safe expansion to her mis- 
sionary and colonization enterprises. The Lord hasten such a 
genuine improvement, and deliver the University from the 
rash and presumptuous hands of political capitalists and adven- 
turers ! 

I was premonished by one of the Dons , that there would be 
very little danger of over-sleeping on a May-morning in Oxford, 
for that an old remnant of Druidical times still flourishes unre- 
strained among the lads of the town. This is nothing less than 
the blowing of all sorts of dissonant horns, about the streets, in 
honor of the British Flora, from the earliest peep of May-day ; 
as if to remind every body of the shame of sleeping when nature 
is displaying her fairest and most fragrant charms. Awakened, 
then, by the promised croaking, up I rose, and repaired to the 
College, towards which the whole tide of early-risers was setting 


MAY- MORNING. 


63 


Here, those who are not admitted to the Tower, station them- 
selves in the street below, or line the bridge of the Cherwell, 
awaiting the aerial music. As I slowly wound my way to the 
top of the tower, I caught beautiful views through its loop-holes, 
and breathed occasional puffs of delicious air. On the summit 
were gathered almost as many gownsmen, and others, as half the 
place would hold : the other half was railed off for the singers — 
men and boys, in their surplices and caps, with sheets of music 
in their hands. The view of the surrounding country, towards 
b orest-hill and Cuddesdon, or round by Nuneham and Stanton 
Harcourt, to Woodstock, was exceedingly lovely — and, of 
course, the more so, for the inspiration of the hour. As the 
clocks of Oxford chimed the hour of five, every head was 
reverently uncovered — and, while the morning sun made all the 
landscape glitter, forth broke the sweet music of the old Latin 
hymn : — 

“Te Deum patrem colimus, 

Te laudibus prosequimur : 

Qui corpus cibo reficis, 

Ccelesti mentem gratia.” 

Alas! it was too soon over; for while it lasted, looking up 
into the blue heavens, one could almost imagine himself amid 
the clouds, and surrounded by the melodies of the heavenly 
host. As soon as it was done, the bells beneath us began their 
chorus, and the tower fairly rocked and reeled. After lingering 
for a time, to survey the effects of a bright morning on the 
domes and spires of the University, and on the aged trees of 
Christ-Church meadows and the windings of the river, I de- 
scended to the walks, and there passed an hour, sauntering about, 
as it were, in the very foot-prints of Addison and Bishop Horne. 
The bells discoursed their music for a full hour ; the rooks chat- 
tered, and made holiday in the tree-tops; the sweet-briar and 
rose perfumed the cloisters ; the deer bounded across the College 
park ; and wherever 1 went, or wherever my eye rested, I saw 
nothing to remind me that this world is a wretched and work-day 
world, and that England is full of misery and sin. For a time, 
rhyme seemed reason, and fancy fact. In the enchantment of 
that delightful May-morning, one might be forgiven for loving 
life and being fain to see many such good days. 


CHAPTER IX. 


The Costal Palace — Opening , etc. 

Having frankly confessed my prejudices against tlie Great 
Exhibition, I must now as frankly own that I am ashamed of them. 
The whole thing was indeed strongly marked by the spirit of 
the age, and was, therefore, such as no one who sees and 
understands the faults of our own times can enthusiastically ad- 
mire. Yet, little by little, I saw so much in it which illustrates 
the better elements of that spirit, and which is capable of being 
directed to noble results in behalf of the whole family of man, 
that, to some degree, I rejoice in the complete success of that 
splendid experiment. I was nicely punished for my folly at the 
outset, in losing the pageant of the opening, of which I took no 
pains to be a spectator, until it was quite too late to obtain ad- 
mittance. If I lost any thing, however, I suffered in good com- 
pany. I am astonished, at this time, to remember the indiffer- 
ence of many Englishmen, in different ranks of society, to the 
entire project, until its success was demonstrated. From The 
Times , which was a great grumbler at first, and from old Black- 
wood, which railed at the Temple of Folly , down to the shop- 
keepers in Regent-street, there was a wide-spread feeling of con- 
tempt for Prince Albert’s hobby, as likely to cost more than it 
would come to: while sincere apprehensions were entertained 
that something revolutionary and bloody might be the result of 
the collection of vast bodies of men, with a large proportion of 
foreign republicans among them, into the bosom of the Metropolis. 
How idle all this seems now ! At the time, I am sure, vei-y few 
were satisfied that it was altogether idle; and I fancy the Queen 
and Prince Albert themselves wished the thing well ever, for some 
time before it was fairly inaugurated. 


THE QUEEN’S PROGRESS. 


65 


I went into Oxfordshire without making any plans to see the 
show, and remained over the morning of the first of May, to hear 
the hymn on the Tower of Magdalen. This was the day of the open- 
ing of the Palace, and accordingly I immediately hastened to Lon- 
don, to see how it would end. Riot and murder were the very least 
of evil results predicted by some, and our American press had an- 
ticipated nothing less than general pillage and insurrection. On 
arriving in London, I found that if I had only secured my ticket 
beforehand, I might have been at the show, as well as at the 
Oxford solemnity ; for it was yet early in the day. Immense 
masses of men were pouring into Hyde Park, as I drove down 
the Edgeware road, and the crowd and crush of vehicles was not 
less surprising. It was with difficulty that I made my way 
through Piccadilly, especially as my cab emerged into the vicinity 
of Hyde-Park-corner. The police were everywhere on duty, but 
there was no mob, properly speaking, to require their interference. 
Thousands of the humbler classes, men, women and children, in 
their best clothes, were endeavouring to enjoy the holiday, and 
get a sight of the Queen. That was all, at this hour — and so it 
continued through the day. Towards noon, the crowd in the 
Park grew oppressive, and the slightest accident might have bred 
a confusion, in which life would have been sacrificed; but there 
was absolutely nothing but good-natured pushing and thrusting, 
and the occasional squall of an infant, whose mother was more 
engaged to save her tawdry finery, than to secure the safety of 
her child. 

Finding myself one of the people, I resolved to enjoy a nobody’s 
share of the sight-seeing. Some English friends whom I found 
in the same predicament, and who assured me I had lost nothing 
worth a guinea to see, volunteered to accompany me into the 
Park, where they thought it not unlikely the most exciting scenes 
of the day would come off. So then, we elbowed and pushed 
our progress into the Park, and were elbowed and pushed in re- 
turn quite as much as we cared to be. At last, it became im- 
possible to fight it out three abreast, and we agreed to “ divide 
and conquer.” The last I saw of my friends, one was here and 
the other there, amid a crowd of hats and faces swaying about, 
with exclamations and entreaties in behalf of coats and 
shins, and toes, and umbrellas. We looked laughing adieus, and 
saw each other no more. At length I found myself in tie line of 
the Queen’s procession, and hired a convenient standing-place to 
see her progress to the Palace. On she came at last, preceded by 


66 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


those superb liorse-guarcls, who dashed magnificently through the 
crowd, and were themselves the finest military spectacle I had 
ever beheld. Several of the Court carriages followed, one con- 
taining the Crown-Prince of Prussia; and then came the Queen’s, 
distinguished by many horses, coachmen, and footmen ; the coach 
itself glittering with gold; the horses splendidly caparisoned; 
and the servants in showy liveries, with powdered hair, cocked- 
hats, and immense nosegays thrust into their bosoms. The cock- 
neys, however, had expected to see the coronation coach, and 
were accordingly much disappointed with this modicum of show. 
Then followed more horse-guards, kicking up the gravel into the 
faces of the plebeians, and sinking, with their haunches to the 
earth, as their riders spurred them into proud prancings and 
curvettings, as if to intimate that the very beasts knew they were 
attending the Sovereign of many Empires to a festival of all na- 
tions. Whew! how they dashed along! and soon a discharge of 
artillery announced her arrival at the Palace; nor was it long 
before another discharge of the guns proclaimed the ceremony 
concluded, and the Great Exhibition opened. Everybody looked 
happy and contented ; and everybody, with wife and children in 
the bargain, appeared to be on the spot. 

As the royal carriage passed, I observed the Queen to be ap- 
parently uneasy, and apprehensive. The glass was up, and she 
was giving herself that constant motion which was Louis Philippe’s 
art of safety on like occasions. Without any distrust of her peo- 
ple, she may have remembered the attempt of the madman, 
Oxford, and she knew that any similar desperado must have a bet- 
ter chance of success on a day like this. I saw the little princes, 
and the royal head, therefore, to great disadvantage ; but fortune 
favored me with a fuller satisfaction on their return. While 
everybody was pressing towards the Crystal Palace, I now turned 
against the tide, and gradually extricating myself from the Park, 
passed down Constitution Hill, and finally arrived at Buckingham 
Palace just in time to get a full view. The crowd here was very 
light, and I saw everything to great advantage. The Queen was 
evidently in high spirits, the glass down, and she bowing most 
maternally. I was within a few feet of her, and lifted my hat in 
homage to the broad, good-humoured smile with which she 
seemed to regard her enthusiastic subjects. The grand-daughter 
of George the Third looks exceedingly like her venerable ancestor, 
and a glance suggested to me what must have been his appear 
ance in his younger days. Her features are by no means un- 


THE QUEEN’S RETURN. 


67 


feminine, though far from delicate; she was a little flushed, and 
hence less fair than she is painted ; but her exhilaration at the 
happy conclusion of her morning, gave an attractiveness to her 
expression which she lacked when I afterwards saw her, ofi more 
splendid occasions, languid with the routine of a drawing-room 
at St. James’s, and sick enough, I dare say, of its heartlessness 
and formality. After the Queen passed into her residence, I 
supposed the pageant ended, but shortly after there arose a shout, 
which convinced me I was mistaken. 1 turned, and saw her ex- 
hibiting herself to the people in the balcony of the palace, in the 
centre of a very splendid group, and with the little Prince of 
Wales, and the Princess Royal, at her side. The Princess Alice, 
the Crown Prince of Prussia, and the Duchess of Sutherland, 
were in the splendid circle, but the Prince Consort I did not 
discover. The shouts of the people were not so vociferous as I 
should have anticipated; and the royal party soon withdrew. I 
afterwards learned that this was a novel proceeding, and was meant 
by her Majesty as an act of most gracious and particular con- 
descension. I trust my republican interest in the spectacle was 
none the worse, however, for being wholly unsuspicious of the 
gratitude with which it should have been mingled. I looked not 
without reverence, at the Sovereign Lady, and not without solemn 
thoughts of futurity at her lovely little family of children. But 
the influence of my country was so far upon me, that I never 
conceived at the time, that her Majesty was doing more than 
might have been expected of her, in honour of her loyal and most 
decorous people. 

To Americans in London the Crystal Palace soon became a 
sore subject. We were the laughing-stock of nations; and I con- 
fess, when I first visited the vast desert at the American end of 
the show, in which many of the articles exhibited were even 
worse than the lack of others which ought to have been there, I 
felt myself disposed, for a minute, to blush for my country. It 
would have been the very poverty of patriotism to plead that a 
few items of our contribution were of very great merit; and self- 
respect would not permit me to multiply apologies, or even ex- 
planations. What was really good spoke for itself. What was 
bad, or indifferent, was simply inexcusable. The fact is, our 
progress in the arts of civilization Was not at all represented; and 
after observing the things which attracted attention, from other 
countries, I felt sorry that nobody had thought of making similar 
exhibitions for us. It really pained me to reflect, that I had 


68 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


seen much more attractive exhibitions in our provincial towns ; 
and I was quite sure that one day’s work, in each of our great 
cities, might have sufficed to collect a far better show of industrial 
produce out of the ordinary market. Fortunately, the yacht 
“ America” came in at the last moment to u pluck up our drown- 
ing honour by the locks;” and if we could but stop bragging 
about it, that would be enough, until some future occasion may 
afford us an opportunity of showing what American mechanics 
and manufacturers are able to achieve in their various depart- 
ments of skill and ingenuity. 

I was pained to observe the feeling engendered by the Exhibi- 
tion between England and America, and by the highly-irritated 
recriminations of ill-bred representatives of both countries, on 
the spot. On the other hand, I was sometimes amused by the 
ludicrous attempts of some well-meaning Englishman to be com- 
plimentary. He would choke out something about the “ Greek 
Slave,” and then pass rapidly to speak of his delight in meeting 
with a model of Niagara Falls : an execrable thing, which only 
served still further to confuse the unusually mudded ideas of that 
prodigy of Nature, entertained by the English generally. As it 
was simply an immense map of the Niagara, it of course repre- 
sented the Falls on such a scale as entirely deprived them of sub- 
limity and beauty : and so, when the speaker would enlarge upon 
the magnificence of this feature of our country, I usually took 
some satisfaction in confessing that the better half of the Falls is, 
after all, on the British side, and that I was sorry he could find 
nothing to praise that was entirely ours. The only instance in 
which I encountered rudeness upon this subject, was an absurd 
one, in a railway carriage, when a Paisley manufacturer, a little 
the worse for whiskey, and very rich in his brogue, after some 
impudent remarks, which led me to decline conversation, stuck 
his face into mine, with the startling announcement — “ye can't 
mak ’ shawls in your countiy /” 

On my first visit to the Exhibition, I must own that my pre- 
judices were utterly dispelled. The meagre effect of the exterior 
was forgotten in the enchantment of the view within. It was 
a high-priced day, when rank and fashion had the scene to itself. 
The piace where the interest of the whole was concentrated w r as 
that beneath the transept, commanding, as it did, the entire 
view ; and where the great trees, preserved within the building, 
furnished a comparative measure of the w r hole. The crystal roof 
showered a soft day-light over the immense interior ; the trees 


THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 


69 


and curious plants gave it a cheerful and varied beauty; the eye 
bewildered itself in a maze of striking objects of luxury and taste; 
musical instruments, constantly playing, bewitched the ear, their 
tones blending, from various distances and directions, in a kind 
of harmonious discord ; fountains were gurgling and scattering 
their spray, like diamonds and pearls ; and, amid all, moved the 
high-born beauty, and the rank and pride of England, mixed with 
auxiliar representatives of foreign states, but not unconscious of 
their own superiority, even while they seemed to forget that they 
were insular, in their easy transition through the pavilion, from 
England to France, and from France to Austria, and from 
Austria to India and China. I thought of “ the kingdoms of 
the world and the glory of them:” did the vision which the 
Tempter disclosed to the Man of Sorrows glitter more ravishing- 
ly than this? 

But others have written so well on this magnificent spectacle, 
that I must not enlarge upon my own impressions. It grew 
upon me, to the last. It was an encyclopaedia, which I am glad 
to have consulted. It was, in fact, a great piece of luck to a 
traveller. How much of Europe it showed him in a day : how 
many leagues of travel it would have cost to have gained the in- 
formation, with respect to divers countries, which here unfolded 
itself beneath one mighty roof! I am convinced, moreover, that 
its influence, on the whole, was good. It was opened and dedi- 
cated by prayer, and the blessing of the Primate ; it was presided 
over by the religious spirit of the British Empire ; it illustrated 
the pacific and domestic influences of a female reign ; it furnished 
a striking proof of the stability and self-reliance of the Govern- 
ment, as well as of the tranquil prosperity of the state ; it united 
many nations in a common and friendly work ; it furnished a 
touching but sublime commentary upon the lot of man, to eat 
bread in the sweat of his brow, and it redeemed itself from the 
spirit of that other Babel, upon the plains of Shinar, by bearing, 
(nscribed upon its catalogue, the text — “The earth is the Lord’s, 
and all that therein is : the compass of the world, and they that 
dwell therein.” 

On one of the days which admitted “ the people,” I took my 
stand in a corner of the quiet gallery, over the transept, and 
looked down on the swarming hive with a meditative pleasure. 
England was there, city and country, the boor and the shop- 
keeper, and all sorts and conditions of men. The unspeakable 
wealth of nations stood secure, and glittered, untouched, among 


70 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


them all. All men are brothers, indeed ; and tears came to my 
eyes as I surveyed those sons of toil gazing for a moment upon 
luxury, and trying to extract a day’s satisfaction in beholding 
the pomps and vanities which Providence helps them, so sternly, 
to renounce. Each soul — worth infinitely more than all ; and 
the purchase of the blood that is beyond all price ! Oh God, how 
solemn the theatre, in which such a scene was presented to my 
eye; and what thoughts it gave me of glory and of vanity, 
of human joys and sorows; of the speedy day when all that 
multitude shall have passed from a world as transient as 
the show which then amused them; and of the day not very 
distant, when they, with all nations, shall stand before the Son 
of Man ! 

It is a good thing that the better counsel prevailed, and that 
the Crystal Palace, when it had served its purpose, was taken 
utterly away. It is now a thing of history, so far as Hyde-Park 
is concerned ; and the Transept Tree willing be its best memo- 
rial to surviving generations. In this way its memory will have 
a moral value, till the end of time. A bubble, like the world, 
it has glittered and vanished. An epitome of nations and king 
doms, and manners and men, it has served its purpose, and been 
removed by its imperial architects. Who can doubt that, in like 
manner, when their noble ends are accomplished, the heavens 
shall be folded up as a vesture; and “the great globe itself, with 
all which it inherits,” shall forever pass away, according to His 
promise, who is King of kings and Lord of lords'? 

It would have been pity not to have seen poor Jack-in-the- 
Green , on a May-day, in London ; and yet I had quite forgotten 
the sweep, and his right to a share in the festival, until I saw the 
sight itself, as I chanced to be passing through one of the streets of 
the West-end. A chimney of green things, it seemed to be ; walk- 
ing along, and nearly or quite concealing the occupant, who 
gave it motion, while a crowd of boys did honour to the show. 
The game seemed to consist, in pausing before certain doors, 
and soliciting a gratuity. Certain it is, that no one can grudge 
a penny to such an applicant, or behold the one day’s sport of 
the poor climbing-boy, without wishing he may succeed in trying 
to make the most of it. Lady M. W. Montague is said to have 
invented this beneficial anniversary of sweepdom, and the moving 
obelisk of green seemed to me no unmeet memorial of her be- 
nevolence. Better this, than the column of the Place Vendome, 
unless it be better to be remembered for levying a world-wide 


LIMITS OF LONDON. 7l 

tribute of blood and tears, than for giving one new object of hope 
and joy to the children of sorrow ! 

During the residue of the week I was engaged in the ordinary 
lionizing, but met several agreeable persons in company, dining 
one day at the Rectory of St. George’s East, and another day at 
Clapham. My first impressions of the enormous extent of Lon- 
don were gained in passing between these limits, and yet as vast 
a suburb lay unexplored beyond the former, as I had travelled 
through to reach the latter. Clapham is called four miles from 
the metropolis, but one reaches it, by omnibus, with no very 
clear idea of having left London at all. And so, in every direc- 
tion, London seems interminable, and villages known to us from 
books as highly rural, and as affording delightful retreats from the 
city, are found, to our surprise, to be incorporated with the great 
Babel itself, and that by no means as its extremities. 






CHAPTER X. 


St. James — Wellington — St. PauVs. 

I had been invited by Dr. Wesley, Dean of the Chapel Royal 
of St. James’s, to attend service there on Sunday morning. It 
was the Second Sunday after Easter. The old clock above the 
palace gate- way pointed eight o’clock as I entered the colour- 
court, and saw the flag of the regiment on duty, drooping about 
its staff, inscribed with the names of famous victories. All the 
region round about seemed to be fast bound in slumber. It was 
the cool, quiet Sunday morning of smoky London, to which only 
the most casual glimmer of sunlight gave any warm announce- 
ment of the advancing day. How still it seemed ! A solitary 
sentinel, in scarlet, stood, six feet high, at the gate. “ Service 
begun yet ?” said I ; and he answered, mechanically, “ yes, the 
Duke just gone in.” I passed on ; knocked at the door of the 
chapel ; mentioned the Dean’s name as my warrant, and was ad- 
mitted. The beadle, in livery, showed me to a seat, and after my 
devotions, I was able to look around. It was a plain place of 
worship, and quite small ; just large enough for the royal house- 
hold, none of whom, however, were now present, the Court being at 
Buckingham Palace. The book in my seat was stamped with the 
royal initial of William Fourth, and marked for some great officer 
of the household. There was one seat between me and the 
pulpit, the seats running along the wall, like stalls, and not as 
ordinary pews. The altar at the end of the Church, beyond the 
pulpit, was the conspicuous object of course, and the window above 
it — which one might hardly take for an altar-window in the street- 
view — gave the chief light to the holy place. Was this the same 
chapel in which Evelyn so often anxiously marked the behaviour of 
Charles and the Duke of York, at the celebration of the Eucharist? 


WELLINGTON ON HIS KNEES. 


73 


The place has been much changed, but I indulged the idea of its 
essential sameness. On the altar were the usual candlesticks, 
and the glittering gold plate of great size and massiveness, in the 
midst of which was conspicuous the Offertory-basin, bearing the 
royal cypher of Queen Anne. There was no one in the chapel 
but the beadle and — one other person, in the seat next me, at 
my right. There, in a dim corner, directly under the pulpit — 
quite crouchingly and drawn together, eyes shut, and white 
head bowed down, Roman nose and iron features, and time-worn 
wrinkles, all tranquilized — sat in silence the hero of Waterloo. 
He was in the plainest morning dress of an English gentleman, 
frock-coat of blue, and light trowsers. I scarcely looked at him, 
and yet gained, in a moment, an impression of his entire persor, 
which I shall never lose. Occasionally I could not resist the 
temptation of a glance at the great man, but who would venture 
to stare at the Duke of Wellington in such a place, and at such a 
time ? The Dean of the chapel entered, with another clergyman, 
who was habited for the pulpit. A clerical personage, attended 
by two ladies, at the same time, came in as I had done, and, dur- 
iug the sermon, there were four other persons present. The Dean 
began the Communion Service, which surprised me, as I had ex- 
pected the usual Morning Prayer. Was the Duke about to com- 
municate? Was I to see him in the most solemn act of our holy 
religion? Was I to kneel beside him to receive the same cup of 
salvation and bread of life ? It gave me solemn thoughts of our 
common insignificance, in presence of Him whose majesty filled 
the place, and on whose glorious Cross and Passion, I endeavoured 
to fix all my thoughts. For ages in this chapel, sovereigns 
and princes had literally brought gold and incense, (as they do 
still, annually, on the Feast of the Epiphany,) and offered their 
vows unto the King of kings ; and now, there I knelt with the 
greatest human being on the footstool ; the first man of the first 
nation ; the great man of the greatest Empire on which the sun 
ever shone ; a man of blood, of battles, and of victories, coming 
as a worshipper of the Prince of Peace, to crave salvation and 
receive its pledge ! ‘ And yet, a greater than Solomon is here, ’ 

said my inward thought, ‘ and therefore let this impressive mo- 
ment be a foretaste of that terrible hour when the J udge of all 
the earth shall sit upon his throne, and when all worldly glories 
must shrink to nothingness before His Majesty.’ 

I could not but observe the Duke, at the saying of the Nicenc 
Creed. As usual, in England, he faced about to the East, and at 

4 


74 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


the name of Jesus, the great Captain of his salvation, he bowed 
down his hoar head full low, as if he were indeed a soldier of the 
cross, and not ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified. 
The Duke was certainly not as eminent for sanctity as for his 
many other qualities ; but who shall say that his worship was 
that of the formalist, or that the secret of his soul, which is with 
God, may not have presented to His eye the contrition and the 
faith of a sinner “ much forgiven !” Surely, the splendours which 
seem so attractive to the superficial, must, long since, have become 
burdensome to him ; and few, so well as he, have been able to con- 
firm by experience the faithful witness of inspiration, that “ man 
at his best estate is altogether vanity.” 

The Dean is a grandson of the celebrated Charles Wesley, and I 
was somewhat disappointed that he was not the preacher. The 
text, it seemed to me, had been selected not without reference 
to the great person, whose attendance at the chapel is sometimes 
solitary, and who having entered on his eighty-third year on the 
preceding Thursday, might be supposed to regard this Sunday as 
one of more than ordinary solemnity. “ Though thy beginning was 
small , thy latter end shall greatly increase ” — (Job viii : 7) — such was 
the text, and the reverend preacher dwelt on the approach of death, 
and spoke of “ men covered with worldly wealth and honours, mak- 
ing their end in remorse and misery.” If the deafness of the Duke 
did not prevent his hearing, many parts of the sermon must have 
affected him, but he retained the immoveable and drowsy look of 
which I have spoken before, and sat close in his corner. The re- 
sidue of the service proceeded as usual ; five persons, myself and 
the beadle included, being the only persons present besides the 
officiating clergy. The collection at the Offertory was duly made 
as in parish churches, and at the proper time (the beadle opening 
the doors of our pews) the altar was surrounded. Supposing that 
some etiquette might be observed in such a place, I was very 
much pleased to find that the contrary was the case ; and that all 
present were expected to approach the altar together. The Duke 
tottered up, just before me, and I knelt down at his side, just 
where the beadle indicated my place. Of course I had other 
things to think of at such a solemn moment, and I know nothing 
of his deportment, at the sacrament, except that it seemed humble 
and reverential. When all was over, and the Duke had retired, the 
Dean, who had beckoned me to remain, for the consumption of 
the residue of the sacrament, expressed great satisfaction at the 
presence of an American clergyman, and spoke affectionately of 


st. Paul’s. 


« 


75 


our Church. He told me that the Duke communicated thus re- 
gularly on the first Sunday of every month : and I was glad, as I 
left the chapel, that I had been so happy as to see him for the 
first time when engaged in such a duty. He is now gone to the 
dread realities we there confessed ; and there is something peculiarly 
touching in the recollection of that morning at St. James’s, when 
that cup of salvation, out of which kings and queens have, so often, 
drank their weal or woe, passed from his lips to mine. It made me 
feel, at the time, both out of place, and yet at home ; for what had 
I to do in a royal chapel, and in the company of the worldly great? 
and yet I was there because it was my Father’s house, and be- 
cause my right to the children’s bread is the same as theirs, even 
the mercy which redeemed all men’s souls at the same unspeaka 
ble price. 

When I next saw the Duke of Wellington, 1 had the honour of 
being presented to him, and of observing his person and his man- 
ners more narrowly, in a scene of private festivity. I saw him 
once again, and that, too, was at St. James’s, amid all the splen- 
dours of the Court, dressed in his military uniform, and glittering 
with decorations. Even there he was the “ observed of all obser- 
vers,” and long will it be before such another shall be seen amid 
its splendours, giving, rather than receiving lustre, in the face of 
the throne itself. But to have seen the old hero bowing at the 
throne of grace, and asking mercy as a miserable sinner, through 
the precious blood-sliedding of Jesus Christ, will often be one of the 
things which I shall most pleasingly recall, when I see some poor 
dying cottager, or tenant of a garret, taking into his hand, with 
as good a right, the same cup of salvation. 

When I first came into the neighborhood of St. Paul’s, I was 
far more impressed than I had expected to be with its dingy, but 
still sublime exterior. With this Cathedral I had no very agreea- 
able associations. Erected during the first period of decline in 
correct taste and sound theology, subsequent to the Rebellion, it 
naturally partakes of the cold formality of the age, and is alto- 
gether as Anti- Anglican as pedantry and an over-estimation of 
the classical in art could make it. It is in the style of a Roman 
Basilica, rather than of an English Church, and is far more suita- 
ble to Tridentine notions, than any Church in England erected 
before the Reformation. Still, it is beautiful ; I think exceeding- 
ly so : and St. Peter’s, in the Vatican, is as inferior to this, in 
model, as this is inferior to St. Peter’s in dimensions and internal 
magnificence. I give my opinion boldly, for I feel sure that 


76 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


there can be no just room for difference of opinion as to this mat* 
ter. The more I saw of St. Peter’s, the less was I satisfied with 
its ill-conceived and awkwardly developed bulk ; while every 
time I saw St. Paul’s, I found myself more and more in love 
•with its rich combinations of grace and majesty. How it came 
to pass that Michael Angelo and his partners produced only a 
magnificent monster, while Sir Christopher Wren came so near 
producing a model of magnificence, it may be hard to tell ; but 
though the latter has its faults, no one can do less than admit, 
that if the immensity of St. Peter’s embodied the same outline 
and proportions which are preserved in St. Paul’s, the whole 
effect of the front, as you approach it between the colonnades of 
Bernini, would be inconceivably better. St. Paul’s unfortunate- 
ly has no such approach ; but its great dome looms before you, 
as you begin to ascend Ludgate-hill, for all the world like a peak 
of the Alps descried through the gorge o£ Gondo. When the pro- 
mised improvements are made in the neighborhood of the church- 
yard, and when a better finish and composition of details are 
adopted at the eastern end, or choir, of the cathedral, it may safely 
lay claim to the finest coup dodl of its kind in Christendom. Its 
defects are notorious, but they appear to me of minor importance ; 
and the double portico, at the west end, so mercilessly criticised 
by the mere grammarians of architecture, strikes me as worthy 
of high commendation, as a happy license in the poetry of the 
art, distinguishing a Christian Church from a heathen temple. 
The Pantheon and Madeleine at Paris are doubtless more cor- 
rect, but they look — the one as if Voltaire and Rousseau might 
have ordered it expressly for their Mausoleum, and the other as 
if Julian himself had built it in grateful remembrance of his early 
friends, the Parisians. 

I leave my readers to imagine the sort of enthusiasm with which 
I first sauntered about the purlieus of the cathedral, and inquired of 
my guide-book the actual site of the old Paul’s Cross, and strove 
to conjure up the images, thereto pertaining, by witness of the 
chronicler. Alas ! how much rather would I have seen the old 
Paul’s, which poor Laud so munificently repaired in the ill taste 
of his day ; and that old pulpit, in which Richard Hooker wagged 
his venerable head, than all this Italian and classical display 
of Wren’s! There is no relish of the past in it: and it has 
little that is truly religious in its effect on the mind. Yet as 
being St. Paul’s, one feels that a Greek and Roman composi- 
tion would not befit any other of the apostles, so well as it 


CHORAL SERVICE. 77 

does the one that was a Roman citizen, and the Doctor of the 
Gentiles. 

Going to St. Paul’s to morning service, on Sunday, the fourth 
of May, I entered the south transept, and for the first time beheld 
its interior. The effect of the immense vault of the dome, as it 
first struck my sight, was overpowering — the more so, because at 
that moment, a single burst of the organ, and the swell of an Amen 
from the choir, where service was already begun, filled the dome 
with reverberations, that seemed to come upon me like thunder. 
I was so unprepared for anything impressive in St. Paul’s, that X 
-felt a sort of recoil, and the blood flushed to my temples. I said 
to an American friend, who happened to be with me — “ after all, 
’tis indeed sublime !” I now went forward with highly excited 
expectations, and the voice of the clergyman intoning the prayers, 
within the choir, increased my anxiety to be, at once, upon my 
knees. I glanced at the monument of Howard, and entered beneath 
the screen. The congregation seemed immense. A verger led 
us quite up to the altar, and as he still found no place, conducted 
us out into the aisle, where I passed the kneeling statue of Bishop 
Heber, with a trembling emotion of love and admiration, and so 
was led about and put into a stall, (inscribed, “ Weldland,” with 
the legend, Exaudi Domine justitiam ,) where, kneeling down, I 
gave myself up to the solemn worship of God. And solemn wor- 
ship it was! I never, before or since, heard any cathedral 
chaunting, whether in England or on the Continent, that could 
be compared to it for effect. The clergyman who intoned the 
Litany, knelt in the midst of the choir looking towards the altar. 
Even now I seem to be hearing liis full, rich voice, sonorously 
and articulately, chaunting the suffrage — by thy glorious Resurrec- 
tion and Ascension — to which organ and singers gave response — 
Good Lord deliver us — as with the voice of many waters. Then, 
as the next suffrage was continued, the throbbings and echoes of 
this organ-blast supplied a sort of under-current to its simple 
tone, at first pouring down from the dome like the floods of Nia- 
gara, and then dying off along the distant nave and aisles like 
mighty waves of the ocean. Tears gushed from my eyes, and 
my heart swelled to my throat, as this overwhelming worship 
was continued. It was all so entirely unexpected ! Cold, cheer- 
less, modern, all but Hanoverian St. Paul’s — who dreamed of 
such a worship here! Yet so it was; and I am sure, from sub- 
sequent experience, that it is capable of being made a most attrac- 
tive cathedral, and a very useful one. Knock away that detesta- 


78 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


ble screen, and put the organ in a better place ; confine the choir 
to the clergy, and compel all the canons, singers and officials of 
every grade to be there ; fit up the Altar end, and make it new 
with a pictured window, in keeping with the architecture and 
vastness of the place ; subdue the light ; set the pulpit at the 
head of the nave, and let the entire Church be filled with wor- 
shippers and hearers : and then, with a little decoration, and 
warm colouring to aid the improved effect, we shall hear no more 
of the chilliness and poverty of this august interior. It might be 
made a great Missionary Church for the seamen and other labor- 
ing classes of the city and port of London ; while the aisles should 
furnish a succession of chapels, for services at successive hours, 
and for Sunday schools, and catechizings. Church Societies also, 
such as the S. P. G., might be allowed their chapels, in which, 
before sailing, Missionaries might receive the Sacrament, or 
offer thanks after arriving at home. One would think, more- 
over, that a fitting use might be found for the great balcony, 
over the lower portico, at the west-end, if only the Dean and 
Chapter would imitate the May-morning hymn of Magdalen, and, 
in that public place, offer annual prayers and thanksgivings to 
God, for the health, peace, and prosperity of the vast Metropolis, 
to which they might make themselves the very centre of spiritual 
life, by a little inventive effort, in the line of useful and benevo- 
lent reform. Oh, for a besom and a reformer first, and then foi 
the line and plummet of the builder ! 

Dean Milman appeared in the pulpit, and preached a well- 
written sermon (from Acts xvii. 26,) with evident reference to 
the influx of divers nations at the inauguration of the Great Ex- 
hibition. But the Apostle, for whom the cathedral is named, 
would have preached very differently, I am persuaded, to the 
assembled Gentiles. In the congregation, I discovered many 
foreign faces, and recognized, (by the familiar tokens of angu- 
lar features, goat-locks under the chin, and collars turned down,) 
not a few of the more inquisitive and irreverent class of our own 
countrymen, who seemed to think the rhetorical powers of the 
worthy Dean altogether inferior to those of the stump, the camp- 
meeting, and the Tabernacle in Broadway. I must allow that, 
if such were their impressions, they are not much to blame. The 
editor of Gibbon, and of Horace, has other claims to our respect, 
and richly deserves an eminent station in the Academy, or in 
schools of Taste and Art ; but the orthodoxy of a Hooker, and 
the zeal of a Whitefield, are the better qualifications for such a 


ST. BARNABAS'. 


79 


post as the Deanery of St. Paul’s ought to be. Even a little en- 
thusiasm might be excused in cathedral preaching, as vastly pre- 
ferable to the frigid decorum of a style and manner quite too 
rigidly harmonious with the Corinthian and classical details of the 
surrounding architecture. 

The same day I attended Evening Service at St. Barnabas’, 
Pimlico, of which everybody has heard something. At this time 
Mr. Bennett had ceased to be the incumbent, and I was informed 
that the less defensible practices of this Church had been discon- 
tinued, in obedience to the injunctions of the Bishop. I cannot 
say I saw anything that need have given great offence, in ordinary 
times and circumstances : but I saw not a little which, in the 
time of apostacies and scandals, would more inevitably scandalize 
the weaker brethren, than would many far more serious sins 
against charity and brotherly kindness. Had these things been 
other than absolutely indifferent in themselves, or had they been 
less seemingly imitative of some ceremonies foreign to our primi- 
tive Catholicity, one might have said, at any rate, that they were 
quite as tolerable as the corresponding ultraisms of the opposing 
extreme in the Church. I certainly tried to feel both charity 
and fraternal sympathy for the brethren of St. Barnabas’, for I 
had heard them well-reported of for many good works. Yet, 
my impressions were not altogether favorable. On the whole, 
the effect was that of formalism beyond anything I ever saw in 
our Communion. The architecture was somewhat too highly 
charged with medievalism for reformed Anglican worship, but 
would be not less inappropriate, in several particulars, to modern 
Romanism. It was antiquarian, rather than practical in any 
respect. The service seemed to be performed in the same 
aesthetic and almost histrionic spirit, even where the rubric was 
strictly complied with. One could not say just what was inex- 
cusable, and yet felt that little was done unto edifying. The evil 
seemed to be that its good was made to be evil spoken of, \ by the 
excessive and unnatural, if not unreal way in which it was ex- 
hibited. Good there was, undoubtedly, in the original idea of 
this Church, and one scruples to impeach the motive of such dis- 
plays of zeal for the glory of God : but we have the positive rule 
of St. Paul, given by precept and example, that everything be- 
yond what is the ordinance and custom of the Church, is to be 
subordinated to the great work of evangelizing men compassed 
with infirmities, and who oppose to the Gospel the divers preju- 
dices of the Gentile and the Jew. I am very much afraid the 


80 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


contrary is the rule at St. Barnabas’. After the Evening Service, 
the congregation was dismissed without a Sermon. Although the 
assembly was far from large, and however true it may be that 
prayers are better than preaching, in certain circumstances, I 
certainly felt that a few words of exhortation might have added 
a spirit of reality to the solemnities, and could not have seemed 
out of place on the Lord’s Day, even at Evening Service. Still it 
is but just to say that the services are so arranged, in this church, 
as to secure an average both of teaching and worship, much 
greater than is usual elsewhere. With all this, why cannot 
a bond fide English air of earnestness be given to the whole thing ? 
Let us have a living ceremonial, at least, and a real one. The 
reading which I heard was not English reading : if the preaching 
be of the same sort, no wonder the people consider the whole a 
mere imitation of foreign performances. An external standard, and 
not the spirit of the English rubric, appears to be before the eyes 
of the ministers; just as a similar standard, and not the law, seems 
to have guided Dr. Lushington in his late decision against them. 
Strange that while his judgment demolishes furniture to which 
nothing but bigotry can object, he leaves the brazen doors of the 
chancel, which are repugnant to common sense, as they almost 
conceal the altar . 

Later in the evening, 1 attended St. George’s, Hanover-Square, 
the Church so distinguished for marriages in high-life, and for a 
fashionable prestige altogether. Here one sees Hanover indeed ! The 
names of its successive Churchwardens are emblazoned on the 
galleries, and I observed that they were generally those of noblemen 
and gentry. Fashion was much too prominent. A young and 
well-looking preacher, in Episcopal robes, appeared in the pulpit, 
and discoursed articulately, and with some spirit, (on Rev. xxii. 
17,) though not remarkably in other respects. This was the new 
Bishop of Nova Scotia, who has since entered into the labors of 
his missionary field with great diligence and success. 

I had attended four distinct services in divers parts of the 
Metropolis this day, and I was informed that I might easily have 
attended as many more. Very different hours are kept in dif- 
ferent parishes ; and it is not unusual for one, two, or even three 
Morning Services to be celebrated in the same Church, to accom- 
modate different classes of worshippers. Such is one fruit of the 
awakened vitality of the Church of England. 


CHAPTER XI, 


Rambles — The Tower. 

In Paternoster-Row I cruised about, and came to Amen Cor- 
ner quite too soon for satisfaction. I strove also to understand 
the precise bounds of Little Britain, as I plodded therein, and 
bethought me of its right worshipful reputation for books and 
men of letters in olden times. In Cheapside, I could see nothing 
but John Gilpin and his family, till I came to Bow Church, and, 
by good luck, heard a full peal of the ery bells that make cock- 
neys, and that whilom made poor Whittington o’ the Cat a Lord 
Mayor. What they were ringing for did not appear, as the 
Church was shut. So I fared on through the Poultry and Corn- 
hill, paying due deference to the Royal Exchange, till on a sudden, 
by some odd crooks and twistings through the very ventricles of 
this heart of the Metropolis, I came before the Tower. It gave 
me a thrill of emotion to see it before me : and 1 here is Tower- 
Hill,’ said I — ‘here stood the scaffold — and I am sure these 
walls must have been the last things seen, before they closed 
their eyes forever, by Strafford, and by Laud, and by so many 
before and after.’ And these the towers of Caesar, and their 
history the history of England almost ever since his conquest ! 

The Church of All-Hallows, Barking, happened to stand open, 
much to my satisfaction, as I was threading a very narrow and 
old-fashioned street near the Tower ; and I entered, with a thrill 
of emotion, to behold the venerable interior, where the service for 
the burial of the dead was read over the bleeding corpse of Arch- 
bishop Laud, as it was brought in just after the axe had made 
him a martyr, and here temporarily interred. I remembered that 


82 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


Southey remarks that the Prayer-Book itself seemed to share in 
his funeral, for on the same day, the Parliament made it a crime 
to use it in any solemnity whatever : and I endeavored to recall the 
scene of desolation which must then have smitten to the heart 
any true son of the Church of England who was its spectator, 
beholding, as he did, the Primate of all England going down intc 
the sepulchre, as the last, apparently, of his dignity and order 
the Church herself beheaded, if not destroyed, with him ; ann 
the Prayer-Book reading its own burial ! Thank God, there 
stood, two hundred years later, a living witness of the resurrectioi 
of that Church and its ritual, and of its powerful life, in the 
new world of the West. I trust I did not offer a vain 
thanksgiving upon the spot. I then looked at the old tombs and 
brasses, which are interesting, if not fine. Here kneel a worship 
ful old knight and his dame, with their nine or ten children 
demurely cut in alabaster, upon the common tomb of the 
parents; and there is a brass, said to be Flemish, commemorating 
another pair, who were laid to rest the same year that saw Bishop 
Fisher and Sir Thomas More beheaded and interred in this same 
Church. Here, too, is some fine carving ; and some of the pews 
have curious adornings, in token of their being the place for 
magistrates and high parochial functionaries, of divers degrees. 
Surely, no one should fail to see this Church when he visits the 
Tower. 

And now I turned towards that old historic pile, repeating, as it 
lose upon my sight, those striking lines of Gray’s — 

“ Ye Towers of Julius, London’s lasting shame, 

With many a foul and midnight murder fed !” 

Its very foundations were laid in blood, if so be, indeed, as the 
old chronicler asserts, “ its mortar was tempered with the blood 
of beasts and for long ages it has never slaked its thirst for the 
blood of human beings, till now, in the halcyon days of Victoria, 
it stands a lonely monument of those barbarian elements, out of 
which has risen the nobler fabric of British freedom. Nor should 
it be forgotten, that popular violence as well as princely tyranny, 
has glutted the spot with murder. Of the many worthies whom 
we must remember here, none were more grossly butchered than 
Laud and Strafford, the victims of a ravening fanaticism ; unless 
we except those gentler sufferers, whose sex and spotless inno- 
cence leave their murderers without even the appearance of 
excuse. A cold chill fell upon me as I entered the fatal pre 


TOWER ARMORY. 


83 


cincts, thinking how many had passed the same gates never to 
return. If there be a haunted spot in all the world, it should be 
this Tower ; and, indeed, strange stories are on credible record, 
which might well assist the fancy in conceiving that the ghosts 
of its old tenants, of the fouler sort, do sometimes revisit the 
scene of their dark and dreadful deaths. 

The red-liveried yeomen, in the costume of the guards of 
Edward VI., receive you as you enter the gate beneath its old 
portcullis, and these are themselves no poor auxiliaries to your 
efforts at reproducing the past. One of them (they are popularly 
known as beef -eaters) conducts you to the Armory and Jewel-room 
forthwith, it being taken for granted that you have come to see 
these things particularly. Imagine yourself, then, passing through 
an immense outer-w'all, in the circuit of which are set, like senti- 
nels, the several inferior citadels, known as the Bloody Tower, the 
Beauchamp Tower, and the like. You gain the open court, or^ 
area, and in the centre rises the immense quadrangular and turreted 
mass, which overhangs this part of London : it is the Keep, or 
White Tower, called also Caesar’s, though built by William the 
Norman. You pass the Bloody Tower, in which the young 
princes were smothered by the liunch-back Richard, and are 
shown into the Armory. Here you see, amid all sorts of brist- 
ling weapons, the sovereigns of England, from Edward I. to 
James II., all on horseback, and most of them in the armour of 
their times. The growth and decline of knightly harness is thus 
exhibited entire, from the “ twisted mail ” of Edward’s hauberk, 
down to the merely ornamental breast-plate of the recreant 
Stuart. W hat a pr ocession ! Some of the visors are down, and 
others are lifted — but to an imaginative eye, every figure appears 
instinct with vitality. Their very steeds, in their plated steel and 
ancient housings, sewn clothed with thunder. Elizabeth, of 
course, retains her own fantastic costume, but there she sits 
before you, in spite ol ner peacock display, a glorious memorial 
of Tilbury, and you can fancy her prancing before her troops, 
and inspiring them to repel the “foul scorn” of the Armada. 
That very suit of armour, now stuffed with the resemblance of her 
father, was once worn by bluff old Hal himself ; and further on, 
is the beautiful array of steel, i i which the goodly limbs of the 
Royal Martyr were once actually encased. Nor are the heroes 
of this august Valhalla without other trophies of their times and 
achievements. Here are bills, pikes and partizans, Lochaber- 
axus and glaives, broudswords and stilettoes ; and then all manner 


84 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


of fire-arms, from the earliest and heaviest matchlock down 
through all the grades of muskets, to musketoons, pistols, and 
pistolets. And then there are saw-shot, and bar-shot, and 
spike-shot, and star-shot ; and then culverins and petards ; and 
weapons offensive and defensive of all sorts and kinds. And 
they bear marks of having been well used in their day. Here 
the wars of the Roses have battered a helmet and pierced a 
shield: through that hole in the corslet, once spouted the rich 
blood of a hero at Tewksbury : that visor was rusted by the last 
sigh of another such as Marmion, on Flodden-field. Even this 
bludgeon of a staff, with pistols at the handle, has dealt midnight 
blows in the hands of the British Blue-beard, as he patrolled the 
streets of his capital, in the spirit of Haroun A1 Raschid, some- 
what heightened by the spirit of wine. 

I was not above looking curiously and thoughtfully at the ex- 
hibition of Popery, displayed in the relics of the Armada. At 
the Crystal Palace there was a very bold and enticing parade of 
the modern instruments of this Protean enthusiasm, in the shape 
of candlesticks and monstrances, thuribles and pyxes, and all 
sorts of embroideries, spangles, laces, and millinery. By such 
things it would convert England now. In Elizabeth’s day, its 
missionaries were less attractive. Bilboes, collars, thumb-screws, 
and iron cravats ; stocks, fetters, and manacles ; a sort of porta- 
ble Inquisition was, in short, the great reliance of the Pope in 
those times, for the reduction of the heretic English : and here, 
no doubt, old Fuller would go on to say, that “if forsooth we 
should feel closely about the fine things of even modern Poperie, 
we might, perchance, find a prickly point, or a sharp edge, or a 
rough chain, if not faggots and gun-powder also, stowed away 
among all their fancy stuffes and petticoats.” I could not satisfy 
myself with looking at these antiquarian treasures however, nor 
shall I attempt to satisfy my reader by detailing them. Let. him 
think how he would feel to touch the very axe that divided the little 
fair neck of Anne Boleyn, and the stiffer sinews of the Earl of 
Essex. Even the block on which old Lovat laid his worthless 
head, loaded with crimes as many as his hoary hairs, gives one a 
shudder, though no man pitied him when he fell. It is, more- 
over, a monument of interest, because there the axe stayed, and 
has never since been lifted on the head of a British subject. He 
died in 1746, in the cause of the young Pretender; and possibly 
this fact suggested to me the thought, (by which alone I can con- 
vey any just idea of this Armory,) that the whole exhibition 


THE REGALIA. 


85 


seems to be a complete property-room of the Waverley novels. 
If the characters of those successive tales could have deposited 
in one room the antiquarian implements and costumes to which 
they gave a sort of resurrection, they would have furnished us 
with very much such a collection as that of this Armory of the 
Tower. 

A new stone strong room has been built for the Royal Jewels, 
and one now sees the Regalia by day-light. It is a glittering 
show; but nothing seems to be very ancient in the collec- 
tion, except the spoon wherewith anointing oil has been poured 
on all the royal heads that have been crowned since the days of 
Edward the Confessor. How many Archbishops have held its 
handle ; how many princes have been touched with its bowl ! At 
the bare thought, all the history of England seemed to rise 
before my sight, and I felt that there is a value in such symbols 
of a Nation’s continuous existence. When displayed, not as 
gewgaws of a vulgar pomp, but as the memorials of a fruitful 
antiquity, they cannot but inspire a sentiment of veneration in 
every beholder, and serve to keep alive the vestal flame of loyalty 
and love for a throne which is invested, indeed, with traditional 
splendours, but which rests on the surer foundations of existing 
freedom and righteous law. 

When I stood again in the open court, I longed to be told 
nothing so much as where the old Archbishop was confined, 
w r hen he gave Strafford that parting benediction. It had been 
arranged by Usher, their common friend, that they should thus 
take leave of one another. The noble Strafford came forth 
walking to the scaffold on Tower-hill, but craved permission to 
do his last observance to his friend. For a moment he feared 
the old primate had forgotten him, but just then he appeared at 
the dismal window of his own prison. “ My Lord — your prayers 
and your blessing” — said Strafford, kneeling down: and the 
benediction was given accordingly ; after which the primate 
swooned in a fit of sorrow, while the stout Earl rising, said, 
u God protect your innocence,” and then stepped onward with a 
military bearing, and passed to his execution, as if it were to a 
triumph. Somewhere here, all this went on ! I could almost 
fancy it before my eye. Then, too, I thought of Raleigh. And 
here, hard by, was the undoubted spot, within the walls, where 
stood the scaffold on which suffered the Queens Anne Boleyn and 
Katharine Howard ; and Lady Jane Gray, more lovely and more 
innocent than either. But it was not the thing to be looking at 


86 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


such a spot in broad daylight. How much I should have been 
pleased with the privilege of lodging, just one night in the White 
Tower, not to sleep, but to stand at my window and look out 
upon the Court, and upon Tower-hill, by pale moonlight, and so — 
to think, and think, and think ! 

By dint of perseverance, I gained admission to the Beauchamp 
Tower, occupied at present by some officers as a mess-room. 
The apartments are covered with carvings and inscriptions, the 
work of many illustrious prisoners, in past times, and with some 
that merely tell of human sorrow, mysteriously, and without the 
name of any one that is known, to satisfy the curiosity they ex- 
cite. A rich carving, in which figures the well-known bear and 
ragged staff \ reveals the prison thoughts of Dudley, Earl of War- 
wick, father-in-law to the Lady Jane. There is another inscription, 
very naturally ascribed to poor Lord Guilford Dudley — the sim- 
ple letters IANE. His sweet Jane was soon to breathe her 
farewells to him from her own lonely cell, and, after seeing his 
bleeding corpse brought in from the scaffold, to follow him to the 
block. The initials R. D. betray the work of another Dudley, 
who lived to be the favorite of Elizabeth, and the dismal hus- 
band of Amy Robsart. Here figure also memorials of Henry’s 
victims, and of the Marian Confessors, and not a few of those 
who suffered under the last of the Tudors. Underneath these 
rooms is the “ rats’ dungeon,” where many have suffered the ex- 
treme of human agony ; and directly overhead is “ the doleful 
prison” of Anne Boleyn. Remorseless, indeed, must have been 
the heart of her husband, if in truth she sent him the letter, said 
to have been endited there, and if, after reading it, he could 
still abandon to the block the head that had so often reclined in 
his bosom. 

I was resolved not to leave these awful precincts until I had 
also visited the Church of St. Peter ad Vincula , the burial-place 
of so many of those whom I had thus endeavored to recall to 
mind. After some patience and perseverance I was admitted, 
and stood upon what a clever writer has justly called one of the 
saddest spots on earth. So many graves, of so many destroyed 
worthies, are here gathered together, that one necessarily thinks, 
as he stands by them, of the day of judgment. What a resur- 
rection there will be in this place at that day — a resurrection of the 
just and the unjust ! The Church is sadly disfigured, and should 
be reverently restored, but its pointed ^arches and mural monu 
ments, with kneeling figures, and one rich altar-tomb, with effi- 


VICTIMS. 


87 


gies, still elevate the interior above an ordinary effect. Near 
this tomb repose the bodies of the weak Kilmarnock and the 
sturdy Balmerino ; and upon my saying something about them to 
the sexton, he told me that, in digging lately, he had come to the 
relics of their coffins. He then lifted a cushion in one of the 
seats, and showed me the coffin-plates, which he had taken from 
the earth. Sure enough, there they were, quite legible, inscribed 
with their names and titles, and the sad date, 1746. I remem- 
bered how I had read in a contemporary number of “ The Gentle- 
man’s Magazine,” and in Horace Walpole’s gossip, the contrary 
impressions made upon these Jacobites by the scene in which 
they were to suffer. Kilmarnock acted pitiably, for his con- 
science was alive to his sin and folly ; but Balmerino was troubled 
with very little of a conscience whatever, and what he had was 
such as to persuade him that he was dying in a good cause. The 
old hero cried “ God save King James,” to the last ; and, striding 
up to his coffin, put on his glasses, and read this very inscription, 
and said it was all right. Now, I was reading it fresh from the 
earth, after a hundred years had gone by. It greatly moved me. 
Then, I thought of Laud hobbling into this chapel, lame and 
feeble, leaning on his servant, but standing up amid the peo- 
ple, while the preacher railed at him ; said preacher wearing his 
gown over a buff jerkin, as the holder, at the same time, of a 
parochial benefice in Essex, and the captaincy of a troop of 
horse in the rebel army ! But where did memories begin or end, 
/When I tried to collect them in such a place ? Here lies, beneath 
the altar, the daring Duke of Monmouth, hacked and hewed to 
death by his awkward headsman ; and, not less barbarously mur- 
dered, here lies that venerable lady, the last of the Plantagenets. 
Cromwell lies there, for helping Henry Bluebeard ; and there, 
too, More and Fisher, for resisting him ; Anne Boleyn and Lord 
Rochford lie there, for being innocent ; and Katherine Howard 
and lady Rochford, for being guilty. Two Dukes are buried 
between the two Queens ; and there Lord Guilford Dudley once 
more reposes with his lovely Lady Jane. Here lies brother 6lain 
by brother, the slayer sharing, in his turn, the fate of the slain ; 
and these, with Monmouth, mercilessly condemned by his uncle, 
and the two Queens murdered by their own husband, seem to 
accomplish the melancholy record with associations of crime the 
most complicate, and of accountability the most dreadful that 
can well be imagined. Oh, God ! what reckonings yet to be 


88 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


Bcttled by Thee alone, are laid up against that day, even in the 
little compass of these walls. 

I made a parting circuit to survey the Bloody Tower and its 
sharp-toothed portcullis — the only one in England that still rises 
and falls in a gate- way, and refuses not its office ; the Bowyer’s 
Tower, in which poor Clarence was drowned in Malmsey ; the 
Brick Tower, said to have been the prison of Lady Jane Grey ; 
and the Salt Tower, which, with its adjoining wall, I found 
nearly demolished, and in process of restoration. Finally, I 
went round upon the water-side and surveyed the Traitor’s Gate, 
so called. Here, then, are the jaws of this devouring monster, 
sated at last, apparently; but who knows? Under that arch have 
passed, one after another, those great historic characters, whose 
names we have already reviewed. They abandoned hope when 
they entered here ; and almost always with good reason. One 
alone on whom, in youthful sorrow, and by a sister’s cruel injunc- 
tion, these massive gates yawned and closed, became, in turn, 
their mistress ; and — alas ! for human nature — made them often 
gape for others. Think of Elizabeth Tudor passing under this 
arch, the captive of the Bloody Maiy ! Who then could have 
foreseen the days of Hooker, and of Burleigh, and of Sliaks- 
peare ? Think of old Laud in his barge, day after day, return- 
ing through this arch from his trial, to his prison, exhausted and 
panting like a hart pierced by the archers, from the cruel shafts 
of Prynne and his confederates, but accompanied, perhaps, by his 
noble defender, Sir Matthew Hale. Oh ! could he but have seen 
the Anglican Church of the nineteenth century, how thin would 
have seemed the clouds which were gathering around her at that 
awful period, and which he feared, no doubt, were to overwhelm 
her forever. Such were some of the thoughts, partly sad, but 
largely grateful, with which I found myself chained to the place : 
and even when it was time to go, still disposed to linger about 
the spot, and bend musingly above the Traitors’ Gate of the 
Tower. 


CHAPTER XII. 


Two Nights in the House of Commons. 

As soon as I could devote an evening to the purpose, 1 made 
my first visit to the House of Commons, going at a very early 
hour in the afternoon, and sitting through the whole till after 
midnight. This House, since removed to the new Palace, then 
held its sessions in what was formerly the House of Lords, said 
to be the scene of all the historic events which have illustrated 
that body for ages, down to the reign of William Fourth. It 
was fitted up for the Commons after the fire of 1834, which 
destroyed St. Stephen’s Chapel. It was, first of all, the hall of 
Edward Confessor’s Palace; was subsequently the scene of a 
fierce passage in the life of Coeur-de-Lion ; and also of that 
romantic incident which Shakspeare makes the first scene in his 
Richard Second. There Bacon presided, and was impeached, 
and fell. Lord Chatham’s expiring effort was made there ; and 
there he thundered those noble remonstrances against the Ameri- 
can war, in which our own history is so intimately concerned. 
Its fitting-up, however, for the temporary use of the Commons, 
gave it a very modern appearance, and it was as plain as can 
well be imagined. Before I returned to America, its interior had 
been pulled to pieces, and the materials sold under the hammer. 
I saw it, therefore, in the Omega of its legislative uses, centuries 
having expired since its Alpha. Mr. Lawrence, our worthy 
Ambassador, had kindly supplied me with a ticket, which admit- 
ted the bearer to the diplomatic benches. These are on the floor 
of the House, and are only separated from those of the members 
by a nominal division ; so that, in fact, I found myself surrounded 
by them. At first the House was thin, and it grew thinner 
towards seven o’clock ; but at about nine o’clock it began to fill 
again, the members returning from their dinners, most of them in 


90 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


full dress. The earlier hours were consumed in dull and unim- 
portant matters, and business seemed to drag on like the daylight, 
till the place began to be as stupid as it was dark and gloomy ; 
when suddenly the Speaker touched a bell, and a flood of soft 
light was showered from the ceiling, not a lamp or burner being 
visible. This mode of illumination was quite new to me, 
•although I have heard of similar effects produced in the same 
way in America. It seemed to quicken and cheer up every- 
thing, till the Speaker left his place suddenly, (for refreshments, 
it was said,) and then all stood still, the members yawning and 
lounging about, and talking in a very undignified manner. When 
the Speaker returned, business seemed to have begun. A mes- 
sage was received from the House of Lords, with the usual 
formalities; but, I observed that as the messenger backed out, 
making his three bows, he stumbled, and excited a laugh, at 
which he also laughed, and then retired, winking and exchanging 
grimaces with sundry acquaintances, as much as to say — who 
cares. He was dressed in wig and gown, and was probably one 
of the clerks of the Lords ; and he was attended in the Commons 
by the Sergeant-at-Arms, who was dressed in court-costume, and 
during the ceremony carried the Mace on his shoulder. The 
sight of “that bauble” revived the recollection of scenes in the 
House of Commons of a very different character. 

The great business of the evening was a debate on the Malt- 
tax, which brought out all the strength of the House, and enabled 
the opposition to talk “ Protection,” with a show of very great 
sympathy for the distresses of “ the British farmer.” Mr. Disraeli 
made a great speech, in his way ; but it is a very poor way, his 
whole manner being declamatory and sophomorical in the ex- 
treme. I had met him several times as I sauntered through Pall 
Mall, and looked in vain for any traces in his face and manner 
of the clever author of Coningsby and its successors. A jaunty 
and rather flashy young man, with black ringlets, twisted about a 
face quite devoid of elevated expression — such was the impres- 
sion he gave me in the open air, and in the House of Commons I 
saw nothing at variance with it. He is certainly a man of parts, 
but that such as he should have forced his way to the Leader- 
ship of the House of Commons, only proves the extreme medi- 
ocrity of tins generation. That he is a Jew is a great bar to his 
advancement, although he is a Jewish Christian. He affects, 
however, to be very proud of his Oriental origin, and perhaps he 
may be so ; but one feels that he cannot be confided in, and that 


LORD JOHN RUSSELL. 


91 


lie is a mere adventurer. He seemed to me to ape Sir Robert 
Peel, in bis way of thrusting his arm behind the skirts of the 
coat, and exposing the whole waistcoat in a flaring manner. I 
have heard as good talking at a debating club as he treated us to 
that night in the House of Commons. Still he made some good 
hits at Ministers, and was often interrupted by cries of hear , hear , 
hear, which are rather muttered than vociferated around the 
benches. He has since been Chancellor of the Exchequer, him- 
self adopting the very policy which he then abused in terms the 
most noisy and passionate. 

Ministers were, of course, not slow in replying, and I had a 
chance of beholding some of the expiring grimaces of Lord 
John Russell, whose feeble government was just ready to fall to 
pieces of itself. I knew the man as soon as I saw him in the 
House. There he sat, under a hat that seemed to extinguish 
his features, trying to laugh and look good-natured. At last he 
rose, and I observed that the familiar caricatures of Punch were 
in fact good likenesses. He is his own caricature. A diminu- 
tive utterer of “great, swelling words;” paltry, and yet pompous; 
and altogether as insignificant a person as I ever saw dressed in 
brief authority. He had only a few plain things to say, and yet 
he contrived to utter them, as if he were saying — “ I am Sir 
Oracle.” Cries of divide had circulated pretty freely during the 
whole debate, and now I saw a division. A personage who had 
been very polite to me during the evening, volunteered to put me 
where I might see the whole process. Just before the division, 
members came running in from the clubs, and the “ whipper-in ” 
returned to his seat, having discharged his duty in securing the 
attendance of votes for the Government. Members had been 
pairing off the whole time, apparently to attend a ball or the 
Opera, as the pairs were nearly always in full dress. Their 
negotiations seemed to be made near the bar of the House, and 
the Speaker was constantly silencing the buzz of members and 
spectators, by the cry of “ order — order,” or “ order at the bar,” 
which Mr. Shaw Lefevre knows how to speak most potently. 
At length for the division, the galleries were cleared at the 
sound of certain bells, which the Speaker appeared to pull ; but 
my kind Mentor clapped me into a sort of lobby, like a closet, 
in the door of which was a pane of glass, through which I saw 
the entire performance at my ease, and quite by myself. Less 
fortunate visitors were entirely ejected, and then the members 
themselves went into the lobby, and so passed in again, their 


92 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


names being pricked by the tellers as they passed, and the whole 
operation taking but a few minutes. The Ministry had a hand- 
some majority. Before the House rose that evening, there was 
another division ; and it so happened that I heard most of the 
men of mark. Sir Charles Wood, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
Hume and Bright, the amusing Colonel Sibthorp, and the 
Milesian Reynolds, all talked, and some of them several times. 
Mr. Keogh excited the significant cry of oh, oh, with laughter, 
and made some sport by rejoining, “ the gentlemen may cry oh, 
but still it is true.” An allusion to the Scottish Universities 
brought Sir Robert Inglis to his feet, and he said a few pertinent 
words, in a manner worthy of himself as the best specimen in 
the House of a true English gentleman of the old school. Mr. 
Sidney Herbert spoke in a handsome manner, and Mr. Gladstone 
also made a very spicy little speech, which seemed to annoy his 
opponents not a little. The House sat till two o’clock, but I 
finally gave it up, and left before the end. As I came out into 
Old Palace Yard, and saw the towers of the Abbey in the still 
solemnity of the night, it seemed more strikingly majestic than 
before. I thought what mighty interests of Empires had been 
settled here, and how often Chatham, Fox, Pitt and Canning, 
had emerged at midnight from such scenes as I had just left, 
looking on the same towers, beneath which they now moulder in 
the dust. The sombre mass of the Abbey seemed a commentary 
on the hot debates from which I was retiring ; a speaking moni- 
tor of the transient interests of the present, and of the eternal 
issues of futurity, as well as of the unchangeableness of the 
past. 

As I walked slowly to my lodgings, I passed Whitehall. Scarce 
any one was in the street, and all was silence. I stopped, and 
gazed on the white walls of the Banqueting-room, and said to 
myself, i how strange ! here I am alone on this most memorable 
spot, in the deep and solemn night. Can it be that here, where 
all is now so quiet, there stood two hundred years ago a crowd 
of human beings, every one of whom was experiencing, at the 
moment, emotions the most singularly mixed and tumultuous that 
ever agitated the human soul ? Can it be that from this same 
white wall issued the figure of King Charles, and that there — 
just there — he knelt at the block, and in a moment was a head- 
less corpse ? Even so ! Here rose that groan of a mighty mul- 
titude, sighing as one man, and there the ghastly headsman stood, 
holding up the royal head by its anointed locks, and crying — this 


THE TAPAL AGGRESSION. 


93 


is the head of a traitor /’ I almost turned about to see whether 
Cromwell’s troopers were not charging down upon me, so strong 
was the impression of the spot ; but just then, the sight of a soli- 
tary policeman, patrolling beneath a gas-lamp, recalled me to my- 
self, and I fared thoughtfully, by the statue at Charing-Cross, 
towards my temporary home. 

The Papal aggression was still, in spite of the Crystal Palace 
and its wonders, an absorbing topic, and my second visit to the 
House of Commons had been set for an evening when a debate 
upon that exciting subject was to be part of the entertainment. 
I felt sure that such an evening in the House would be, in some 
measure, an historical one, and might be useful to me through 
life, in watching the course of religious and political events. 
Besides, I wanted to hear a debate that should enable me to com- 
pare, by its unity of subject, a Parliament of Victoria, with those 
of the Plantagenets and Tudors. I had my desire. 

It seems impossible for the American mind to appreciate 
rightly the very grave injury which has been done to the British 
nation by the attempt of the Papal Court to erect Episcopal 
Sees, and bestow corresponding titles within the jurisdiction of 
the British Church, and under the shadow of the British Crown. 
But when it is considered that the Pope has thus attempted to 
exercise a power to which he could never have aspired even when 
England wore his yoke, and which would not now’ be suffered by 
any Popish sovereignty in Europe ; when, to say nothing of the 
outrage to the Church of England, the direct attempt upon the 
allegiance of subjects is considered, and its bearings upon the 
future are duly weighed : no well-informed mind can hesitate a 
moment as to the propriety of the feelings which it so generally 
inflamed, or retain any other astonishment, than a profound one, 
at the feebleness and utter imbecility of the measures with which 
the advisers of the greatest Sovereign in existence have allowed 
her to meet the invasion. It was not a moment for hesitation, 
or for consulting economics ; a demand should have been made 
upon the Pontiff for an immediate alteration of his attitude to- 
wards England, and the least attempt to palter on his part should 
have been responded to by a British fleet off Civita Vecchia. If 
France was an obstacle to such a demonstration, and if “ the 
peace of Europe” must be kept at all hazards,— even the hazard 
of a speedy Armageddon to pay for it — if such be the England 
of 1850 — alas for the extinction of the England of 1588 ! Is 
the spirit of Elizabeth past revival ? 


94 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


Since 1830, the whigs, laboring, as Air. Macaulay now con- 
fesses, under a delusion as to the ameliorated spirit of the Papacy, 
have gradually advanced the Romanists to great power and in- 
fluence. They had introduced them to parliaments ; had flatter- 
ed them with ecclesiastical titles; and unavailingly tried to 
propitiate them with gifts. Finally, hoping to secure the Pope’s 
aid in the management of Ireland, they had advanced, step by 
step, to a point from which they could not recede, and at which 
they ventured to go further, and actually invite him to the daring 
encroachment, which to their horror and amazement, set all Eng 
land in a blaze. At every step of this infamous and foolish com 
promise with Rome, true Churchmen had protested, and pleaded, 
and struggled in vain ; but these true men were now confounded 
in the disgrace of an alarming apostacy, owing to a popular mis- 
apprehension, and it was easy to turn the whole fury of the fire 
upon them. Lord John, detected in the very act of inviting the 
Pope’s attempt, had the cunning to point at them, and lay it on 
the “ Tractarians.” The trick succeeded : the Romanizers were 
gratified, for they wished well to any but the friends of a Church 
which they meant to abandon and destroy ; the Evangelicals 
swelled the outcry, which brought popular gales to their own 
canvass ; and the Ministry chuckled behind their fingers. The 
Romanists were triumphant, since they had the Ministry in their 
power ; and the only real sufferers by all the tumult and indigna- 
tion thus aroused, were the very class who alone had contested 
every inch of ground with Popery and the Whigs, from the 
“Emancipation” of 1829, to its sequel and direct consequence, 
the “ Aggression,” twenty years afterwards ! 

Such was the very just review of the existing question, which 
in different ways was brought before the House on the evening of 
the ninth of May, 1851. The debate was on a motion of Air. 
Urquhart, to the effect that “ the act of the Pope had been 
encouraged by the conduct and declarations of her Alajesty’s 
Government ; and that large expectations of remedy had been 
stimulated by Lord John’s letter to the Bishop of Durham, which 
his measures had entirely disappointed.” The member pressed 
his resolution (offered as an amendment to the proposed bill) by a 
reference to the history at which we have glanced, and by calling 
to mind some former passages in the political life of the Prime 
Aiinister, which it could scarcely have been comfortable for him 
to hear just at that moment. Sir George Grey, in a very feeble 
speech, replied in behalf of his friend, from the Treasury bench, 


SIR ROBERT HARRY INGLIS. 


95 


and amused himself at some length, at the expense of Mr. Urquhart, 
without really affecting his argument. Lord John Manners re- 
torted with not a little force, at least in his matter. He declared 
the proposed amendment a mere truism, and yet one of practical 
utility. Lord John had successfully thrown dust in the eyes of 
the people. Lord Powis and Mr. Dudley Perceval had in vain 
endeavored to place the facts before the country. Then followed 
a passage of pungency and truth. “The Prime Minister,” he 
said, “ had twice encouraged the acts against which his puny and 
delusive legislation was now directed ; had twice defeated the 
modest attempt of the Church of England to place Bishops of 
her own in the great towns now occupied by the Pope ; had 
granted to Popish Bishops, in all the Colonies, precedence over 
Anglican Bishops ; had yielded similar favors to the Romish titu- 
laries in Ireland ; had pertinaciously resisted the fair demands of 
the Irish Church for Scriptural Education; and yet — after a 
public policy which had been one unvaried monotone of insult 
and wrong to the Church of England — had contrived, by one 
magic stroke of the pen, to place himself before the country as 
the champion of English Protestantism, and as the only effectual 
antagonist of the encroachments of the Church of Rome.” A 
Romish member now rose, and, while opposing the amendment, 
paid a singular tribute to its truth. “He was not the man to 
blame the noble Lord for encouraging the Pope’s measures ; but 
he blamed him for now attempting to contend with the direct 
consequences of his own flattering policy.” After a rambling 
and incoherent speech, of tiresome length, from a Mr. Stanford, 
who supported the amendment, Sir Robert Inglis rose and oppos- 
ed it -with characteristic dignity, and with that grave and sober 
earnestness which, under the manifest control of taste and judg- 
ment, seems always uppermost in all his utterances. He showed 
that, if the amendment were passed, it would defeat the bill. 
However true, therefore, he must oppose it, because the bill 
was all that the Government had offered to do, and something 
must be done. He had no objection to calling on the Govern- 
ment to do more ; he thought that Lord John might fairly be 
asked to meet, in full, the expectations he had excited ; but he 
could not vote for an amendment which would effectually pre- 
vent the doing of anything to carry out the just wishes of the 
country. 

Sir Robert, during his remarks, dropped an expression, for the 
first time, if I am not mistaken, which soon became familiar. 


90 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


He spoke of the opposition of the Irish Brigade , referring to tho 
Romish members then sitting, and voting together, with an ap- 
pearance of complete drill, and of absolute obedience to one 
command. The expression was repeated as a quotation by 
another member, and raised a laugh, as something freshly caught 
up, and this seemed to mark it as a hit. Finally , v *Mr. Reynolds, 
the apparent leader of the Brigade, gave it complete success by 
replying to it. Sir Robert, after quietly delivering his remarks, 
had walked round from his seat, and was conversing with a 
friend, (while he twirled in his hand a rose, that he had taken 
from his button-hole,) when Mr. Reynolds stepped into his place, 
with a sort of bog-trotting movement, and facetiously remarked 
that, it might seem strange to see him standing, as it were, in the 
shoes of the venerable baronet, who had just called him and his 
countrymen, u the Irish Brigade.” He then acknowledged that 
they were banded together against the bill, and “ against every 
other, good or bad, which its author might propose.” He thus 
avowed their purpose, to throw their entire force against the 
Government, until Lord John should be driven out of power. 
He then went on with Irish volubility, and the no less character- 
istic accent of the Patlander, to belabor Lord John’s bill. He 
told not a little tVuth : called it u sham legislation ;” stuck out his 
finger towards the Minister, and said, “ If ye pass it, ye dare not 
put it into execution.” Here, however, he gave it the praise of be- 
ing quite the thing for its purpose — “ a cruel and persecuting 
measure — which, as such, had received the approbation of the 
Protestant watchdog of Oxford University .” By this epithet, signifi- 
cant of high fidelity, but not intended to be particularly respect- 
ful, he gave Sir Robert a Rowland for his Oliver. 

The residue of this gentleman’s speech was amusing enough, 
as coming from a Papist. He was for liberty of conscience ; 
couldn’t bear to think of religious persecution ; and, as for the 
Queen, she had no subjects in the world that could compare with 
her Irish subjects, for the devoted affection with which they re 
garded her. One would think it a pity that such homage as he 
professed for a heretic sovereign, had not been as fashionable 
among his co-religionists in the days of Guido Fawkes, or of the 
Spanish Armada. 

At last, Lord John himself rose to reply. I thought of the 
history of the house of Bedford, from the back-stairs of Henry 
VIII., when, as Burke expresses it, “ the lion having gorged his 
share of the Ecclesiastical carcase, flung the offal to his jackal,” 


THE AGGRESSION-BILL. 


99 


and, notwithstanding the eminent exceptions to the remark, I said 
to myself, as I left the House after midnight — I seem to have 
been hearing only a “ debate in the Senate of Lilliput.” 

It seemed strange, before I sat at breakfast, early next morning, 
to take up the Times , and read, in four or five columns, a very 
tolerable report of the whole proceedings, and many of the words 
which seemed, even then, to have scarcely ceased to sound in my 
ear. I cannot but add the remark, that it is a great pity the 
amendment, which I had heard debated, failed to pass. It would 
have loaded Lord John with the full consequences of his own 
conduct, and it would have saved England from the degradation 
of enacting a law, devised as a mere expedient, and which affords 
to the enemy the darling satisfaction of defying it with impunity. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


The House of Lords — Their Lordships in Session . 

The new House of Lords is a superb specimen of modern art ; 
and, in every way, is worthy of the hereditary Senate of the 
British Empire. Perhaps it is too small for full effect, and yet, 
if larger, it would hardly answer the purposes of speaking and 
hearing. Its dimensions, however, are symbolical of its charac- 
ter, as intended for the use of a very select assembly ; and would 
seem to indicate, moreover, (to copy once more the manner of 
Fuller,) that the Whigs are not to reign forever, seeing that if 
such as my Lord John Russell should long continue in power, there 
would need be built a much larger hall to contain all the broken 
lawyers, hack politicians, Popish Bishops, and rich Jews, who 
might justly expect, from former examples, to be fitted up with 
coronets, coats of arms, and patents of nobility. The like idea 
seems to obtain, moreover, in the decorations of the hall, in 
which History is artfully blended with Religion and Chivalry ; 
implying, if my republican comprehension can rightly interpret 
this writing on the wall, that to be a true patrician, one must 
have historical antecedents, and should represent some great fact 
in the annals of one’s country ; and that such antecedents, to be 
made honourable to an individual, must be sustained by personal 
worth, and by that refined and sublimated virtue which is called 
honour. Thus, for example, a Nelson or a Wellington is a 
nobleman by the historic origin of his family, although of modern 
date; while, with respect to “all the blood of all the Howards,” 
it is equally true, that if devoid of corresponding traits of mag- 
nanimity and honesty, its degenerate inheritor is, after all, only 
fit to be hooted at as a poltroon and a villain. This principle I 
fully understand, American as I am. I feel that something is due 
toil he worthy representative of a name illustrious in the annals 


DISRAELI, 


97 


down to the council-chamber of Victoria, where the jackal still 
waits on the lion, in the shape of this insatiable devourer of the 
Church’s bread, and not less insatiable thirster for her blood. 
How should he dare lift up his voice to apologize for the brand 
of infamy which this evening’s debate had stamped upon his 
career as a Minister, or rather which it merely showed to have been 
already set by his own hands ! Forth he stepped, like himself 
alone, and with the same pomposity to which I have already 
adverted, went through a few incantations, which ended in a 
fresh transformation of the diminutive conjurer before us, into a 
most earnest “ deviser of securities for the crown and the nation.” 
He called the opposition “mean and shabby” — for such courte- 
sies seem to be the seven locks of a rhetorical Samson, in his 
conception — and with a front of brass, only equalled by the 
audacity of his imputations upon true sons of the Church of 
England, declared “there had been nothing in the conduct of 
the Government which had a tendency to provoke the aggres- 
sion.” He sat down, in his littleness, and was instantly pounced 
upon by Disraeli, from the opposite side of the table, as it were 
by a hungry terrier. “ Is it a fact,” then, said he, “ or is it not, 
that the First Minister of the Crown has himself in this House 
expressed an opinion, that he saw no harm in Romish Bishops as- 
suming territorial titles in this realm of England ? Is it a fact, or is 
it not, in the recollection of this House, and in the burning mem- 
ory of this country ? Is it a fact, or is it not, that a Secretary 
of State, in another place, has expressed his hope that Romish 
Bishops would soon take seats as Peers of Parliament in the 
House of Lords ? Is it a fact, or is it not, that a member of the 
Cabinet has been sent as Plenipotentiary to Italy, 4 and held fre- 
quent and encouraging conversations with the Pope ? Is it a 
fact, or is it not, that the Pope condescended to intimate to said 
Ambassador his gracious purposes to do something that might affect 
England; and is it a fact, or is it not, that the Plenipotentiary 
thought it unnecessary to inquire what it might be 1” 

Lord John here rallied, and interrupted the speaker, by saying 
that “ he had admitted the fact of a report that the Pope said so, but 
had also stated that Lord Minto denied having heard it.” Thus 
terrier seemed to have rat in his fangs, but rat could still show 
his teeth to terrier. It was the first impeachment to which he 
had ventured any reply ; and, by replying to this, he convicted 
himself of the more grave charges, which he was obliged to hear 
in silence, with his hat slouched down over his criminal features. 


98 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


Who can feel any respect for an English patrician, caught in 
such a felony, and proved as truly a moral delinquent, on a 
gigantic scale, as ever a petty thief at the Old Bailey on a small 
one ? Oh ! for a conscience in mankind to save their sympathy 
for the poor wretch in the bail-dock, and to consign to merited 
infamy the titled and decorated offender, whose crime is unfaith- 
ful stewardship in the State, and treason to the Crown Imperial 
of the Most High God ! I have no abstract prejudice against a 
peerage. For my own country only do I deprecate the idea of 
an aristocracy; but What are patricians worth, if they cannot 
present to the State, in which they are an organic part, a high 
and wholesome example of integrity and honour ? In my heart, 
therefore, as I looked at this scion of the house of Bedford in 
his moral degradation, I felt — would that he might know the 
unaffected pity with which a republican looks at him from this 
gallery, as a man, in this great crisis of history, false to his 
rank, false to his sovereign, false to his country, and false to his 
Redeemer. 

Mr. Disraeli paid no attention to his disclaimers, but, as it were, 
buffeted him smartly with another hit — “ Is it a fact, or is it not, 
that the Vice-Royalty of Ireland was in indirect communication 
with the Pope, and expressed affection for his person, and rever- 
ence for his character 1” This brought out enthusiastic cheers ; 
and Lord John tried to emerge from beneath his hat, to look 
contemptuous. Ministers had a small majority. But Lord 
John must have felt that his time was coming, while, no doubt, 
Mr. Disraeli began to draw as near in fancy, to the envied bench 
on which he sat so little at ease. The latter had done decidedly 
better than when I heard him before; but, when the division 
was taken, I could not but say to myself — is this all that England’s 
Senators have to say in such a matter ? I felt that there were 
few of them alive to the importance of the thing in hand ; and 
that no one seemed equal to the support of old England in con- 
sistency with herself. Was this, indeed, the Senate in which 
Burke had uttered his voice? Was it the hall in which Chatham 
had rescued from the last disgrace the honour of his country ? 
And were there to be no words, like his — burning words — living 
words — immortal words — to prove forever that England took not 
her shame in abject submission ! At least no such words were 
spoken. There was not even a John of Gaunt there, to bewail 
the disgrace of “ the dear, dear isle,” 

“ Dear for her reputation through the world 


THE ARISTOCRACY. 


103 


tion may be exhibited as the chief memorial of their existence ? 
If the British Peerage proves untrue to the Church of England, 
and degrades itself to the bare responding of an Amen to every 
momentary Credo of Ministers and Commons, what use of such 
machinery? This palace shall be even as those of Venice. This 
gorgeous interior shall be kept under the key of the mere cicerone , 
and shown as a thing of the past to the staring traveller, as he 
marvels over tarnished gilding and faded damask, and at every 
tread disturbs the dust upon its floor, or breaks through cobwebs 
dangling from its ceiling. 

When one sees, in the writings of such a man as Dr. Arnold, 
confessions of annoyance, if not of a sense of injury, from the 
existence of a privileged class, to which merit must constantly 
give way, where otherwise it would be entitled to precedence ; 
and when one discovers, even in the highest seats of British in- 
tellect and piety, a certain deference to mere rank, which seems 
humiliating ; and when one finds something of the spirit of tuft- 
hunting diffused through all classes alike, from the Tory school- 
boy to the Whig Bishop ; one feels indeed that there may be 
arguments against the aristocratic element in society, which have 
never been stated in their list of grievances by political agitators. 
But, after all, in an old country like England, the aristocracy 
exists, and there is no destroying it without destroying the nation. 
The infernal guillotine itself cannot wholly make way with it, as 
France has learned to its sorrow. What then? It must be 
modified and perpetuated. It must be purified, and worked in 
with society, as its ornament, but not its fabric. This is what is 
done already in England. The nobility, the clergy, the gentry, 
the literati, the professional classes, and then the people — after 
all, in England they are one ; “ shade unperceived and softening 
into shade,” and joined and knit together by habits, tastes, alli- 
ances, and interests, in a wonderful order. Much yet remains to 
be done, and will be done, to smooth down remaining asperities 
between rank and rank ; but the British aristocracy may be said, 
even now, to be a genuine one, identified with everything great 
and good in the nation, and, on the whole, presenting a whole- 
some example to other classes in the State. In all probability, 
so virtuous an aristocracy has never been seen elsewhere among 
mankind. Among them may be found specimens of human 
nature, whose physical and mental endowments, together with 
their moral worth, and intellectual accomplishments, entitle them 
to the highest admiration of their fellow-men. We are too well 


104 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


aware that side by side with such, may sit, adorned with equal 
rank and titles, some wretch, whose coronet has been purchased 
by infamy, and whose hereditary decorations are but the mockery 
of a character, every way pestilent and detestable. The English 
themselves are used to it ; but it strikes a republican with amaze- 
ment that such creatures should be noble, even “ by courtesy.” 

To see the House, as I saw it first, empty, and for the sake of 
its architecture and decoration, one gets a ticket by applying at 
the adjoining office of the Lord Chamberlain, on specified days. 
To attend the sessions of the House of Lords, one must possess 
an autograph order by a Peer. With this I was kindly supplied, 
not only for one night, but for four ; the orders being given me 
in blanks, which I was permitted to fill with any dates that 
might best suit my convenience. It so happened that little was 
going on in the House of Lords while I was in London, and I 
did not see it to advantage. As I heard several of its most emi- 
nent members elsewhere, however, and frequently met with them 
in society, I had less to regret than would otherwise have been the 
case. In the House itself, I saw enough to familiarize me with 
its appearance and manners, and the rest is easily imagined, 
when one has before him the Times' report of any particular 
scene. 

Lord Truro, sitting on the woolsack, was the first object that 
struck me on entering — and it was by no means a majestic one. 
He is a Russell Chancellor, and of course no Clarendon. Shades 
of Somers and of Eldon, what a figure I saw in your old seat ! 
The sight of the Bishops, in their robes, with the old Primate, in 
his wig, reminded me of Chatham’s appeal to “ that right rever- 
end bench, and the unsullied purity of their lawn.” Their Lord- 
ships were few in number, and among them the Bishop of Oxford 
was the man of mark. I doubt if he has his equal in the House 
for “ thoughts that breathe and words that burn.” The Lords 
temporal were lounging about their benches, hats on or off, as 
chanced to be, and what little speaking I heard, was by no means 
such as to rouse them to particular attention. A hesitating, stut- 
tering, and very awkward utterance would even seem to be the 
fashion in this noble House. I looked in vain for Lord Brougham, 
not because I have any great respect for him, but because one 
may be pardoned for trying to see such a curiosity, when it is, 
possibly, just under one’s nose. He has been vastly over-rated, 
and will soon be forgotten. In general, their Lordships looked 
like well-bred gentlemen, and there was about them a certain air 


DECORATIONS. 


101 


of a great nation ; but jour mere Lord Moneybags, or the spirit- 
less and unprincipled shadow of a name that was once right- 
honourable, are creatures with whose acquaintance I should feel 
it somewhat discreditable to be bored. Every man who has 
moral worth, and who respects himself accordingly, must enter- 
tain a degree of honest contempt for such company, somewhat 
akin to that of good old Johnson, in his thread-bare coat, when 
he wrote his inimitable letter to Chesterfield. \ 

However, their Lordships’ House ! There is the Throne ; and 
I defy any one to look at the Throne of England without veneri 
ation. It is a gorgeous seat, over which appear the royal arms, 
while on its right and left are seats for the Prince Consort and 
the Prince of Wales. A splendid canopy overhangs the dais on 
which these seats are ranged, and the dais itself is covered with 
a carpet of “ scarlet velvet pile, spotted with heraldic lions and 
roses.” The ceiling is ribbed with massive gilded bands, and 
richly bossed and set with devices in all the colours of blazonry. 
Between the lofty windows are niches intended to receive the 
bronze statues of the old Magna Charta Barons, while the win- 
dows themselves are filled with stained glass, commemorative of 
the Kings and Queens of England. The subordinate ornaments 
and furniture are all in keeping. On the right hand of the 
Throne, are the seats appropriate to the Bishops, where the 
Church “ lifts her mitred front” before the Sovereign, and teaches 
her by whom she reigns, and how she may execute judgment. 
But directly in front of the Throne is the woolsack , covered with 
red cloth, and otherwise made suitable to “the keeper of the 
Queen’s conscience,” who ordinarily sits thereon. Before this 
are the clerks’ table and seats, and then the bar ; while on either 
hand range the crimson benches of the Peers. At the end of the 
hall is the reporters’ and strangers’ gallery, of very small dimen- 
sions, from which, however, one gets the best view of the whole 
interior, and of the striking pictures over the Throne^ These 
are happily chosen as to subjects, and well executed as frescoes. 
In the centre is the Baptism of King Ethelbert — the symbol of a 
truly Christian realm : on one side is the Black Prince receiving 
the Garter — a symbol of genuine chivalry ; and on the other 
is Henry, Prince of Wales, submitting to imprisonment for an 
assault upon Judge Gascoigne — a most speaking exhibition of 
the time-honoured relations subsisting between British Royalty 
and British Law. It will be a wholesome thing for every future 
Prince of Wales to look at this picture, before he presumes to sit 


102 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


down under it. It may really have an important influence in 
moulding the character of future Kings. God grant it may ! 

In surveying this splendid apartment, the mind naturally goes 
forward, since it presents the fancy with no past history. What 
is to be *its future ? Is this House to be the scene of a further 
development of vast imperial resources ? Is it to be graced by a 
perpetuated aristocracy, surviving every change in society and in 
arts, by the force of their own character, as furnishing a high 
example to mankind of “ whatsoever things are lovely and of 
good report V 9 Is this roof to resound with the voices of high- 
minded men, asserting from age to age their privilege to be fore- 
most in defence of religion and of humanity, and to do and to suffer 
for the good of their fellow-subjects, and the welfare of mankind? 
Is the British Peerage to grow brighter with high moral qualities, 
than with hereditary honours, and to be cherished by an en- 
lightened spirit of public virtue as a standard of all that is 
honourable, and as a pattern of what is most excellent in the 
ideal of the true Christian gentleman ? Or must the sad reverse 
be true, and must- this House be the scene of the last act in the 
eventful history of England ? Shall a factitious nobility be 
crowded into these chief seats of the realm; men devoid of 
ennobling antecedents, and not less so of honour and of 
worth ? Shall the decay of a mighty Empire be marked by such 
a House of Lords as may facilitate the plans of the demagogue, 
sinking the Sovereign to a Doge, and the Church to a State 
hireling, and giving to the Commons the unrestrained privilege of 
revolution and anarchy? These are questions which a well- 
wisher to the British Empire cannot but suggest, in view of 
events which have lately taken place ; and especially in view of the 
fact, that the House of Lords has not unfrequently of late suffered 
itself to be disgraced by breaches of Christian courtesy, not to 
say of common decency, which, if multiplied in such a conspicu- 
ous place, must tend to barbarize the world. Let us hear no 
more of disgraceful scenes in the American Congress, till heredi- 
tary noblemen, who have little else to do, can furnish mankind 
with a wholesome example of high legislative decorum ! For 
unless noblemen will reflect upon their position, and act upon 
convictions of what is necessary to the credit of their rank, in a 
day when true gentlemen are by no means rare, outside their glit- 
tering circle, and even among plain republicans, they must not 
wonder if they too should become as a worn-out form, or an ex- 
ploded theory. Who knows how soon this superb hall of legisla- 


THE POLICE. 


106 


ot travel and of finish, which marks the habituated man of the 
world. Some of them were plainly dressed, but others were 
evidently men of fashion. One thing they ought to know and 
feel, and that is — that much is given them, and much will be re- 
quired of them. No doubt every position has its qualifying dis- 
advantages and trials ; yet it must be allowed that no station in 
which a human being can find himself placed by his Creator, 
affords so many advantages, at the very outset, for usefulness and 
happiness in life, as that of a young English Peer of competent 
fortune and sound mind, with a healthful body, and a good educa- 
tion. What a hint for such a man is that challenge of nature’s 
own nobleman, St. Paul — Who maketh thee to differ from another , 
and what hast thou that thou didst not receive f 

An incident which created some excitement in fashionable cir- 
cles, shortly after the opening of the Crystal Palace, will illus- 
trate one feature of British civilization which will not be out of 
place in connection with these remarks on the aristocracy. 
Everybody has heard of the London Police, their admirable drill, 
and great efficiency. Their impartial enforcement of the rules 
of the Great Exhibition was peculiarly illustrative of these 
characteristics, and also of the spirit of law and order, as para- 
mount and inflexible in the Metropolis. No departure from these 
rules was allowed to any one ; and carriage after carriage, all 
blazing with heraldic splendours, and filled with rank and beauty, 
was forced to change its route by the simple waving of a police- 
man’s finger. It so happened that a dashing young fellow, a scion 

of the noble house of S -, driving his own equipage through 

Hyde Park, ventured to disobey. On this the policeman seized 
the horse’s head, and backed him. The hot-blooded Jehu in- 
stantly raised his whip, and struck the policeman several violent 
blows over the face and head. The result was his immediate ar- 
rest ; and on being carried before the Magistrate, young S 

found himself committed for ten days imprisonment, which he 
accordingly fulfilled with exemplary submission, wearing jail- 
clothes, and performing sundry penances, precisely as if he had 
been the humblest offender in the land. On the same day that 
this happened, a cabman whom I had engaged to take me, in a 
hurry, to a certain part of the town, drove me rapidly through 
St. James’s Park, and was just making his escape into the street, 
near Buckingham Palace, when he was stopped, in the gate, by a 
policeman, and ordered instantly back, with a threat of severe 
punishment should he again trespass where he knew that only 


106 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


private carriages were admitted. As my time was precious, 1 
ventured to interpose, and exhausted every art, in vain, to induce 
the inexorable policeman to allow the cab to pass on. He little 
knew my sincere respect for him, and the real satisfaction I took 
in thus finding him “ a brick for his principles.” Finally, I 
offered to alight, and discharge the cabman there ; but this also 
the policeman respectfully forbade. “ It would never do,” he 
said, “ to allow cabmen to take such liberties ; the cab must go 
back ;” but then he advised me not to pay the fellow a single 
penny, as he was not entitled to anything but an arrest, for ex- 
emption from which he might be thankful. I was exceedingly 
annoyed, in spite of my admiration for authority, but thought it 
best to submit without further parley. Next day I heard of the 

fate of the Honorable Mr. S , and, on the whole, felt glad 

that I had got off so easily. Thus it seems that law is law in 
London, for all classes alike ; and if the stranger, in his cab, is 
not permitted to violate it, he may at least console himself with 
the fact that he would fare no better if he were a home-born 
aristocrat in a dashing tilbury. It is this well-defined system of 
society, in which every man knows his rights, and where even 
privilege is limited, and as absolutely held in check as license, 
that makes even humble life in England, in spite of all its bur- 
dens, a life of liberty and contentment. Theoretical equality 
may exist with far less of real independence, and we who value 
ourselves on self-government, are perhaps in danger of finding 
ourselves without government, and too jealous of authority to 
submit even to law 


CHAPTER XIV. 


St. Mary’s , Lambeth — Temple — St. PauVs — Tunnel . 

Time never need hang heavily on one’s hands in London. A 
stroll in the Parks is an unfailing resource in fair weather : when 
it was wet, I used to take refuge under cover of some exhibition. 
The National Gallery, in Trafalgar Square, and the Vernon Gal- 
lery, gratuitously opened to the public, in Marlborough House, 
were quite a resource ; although the annual show of pictures in 
the former was nothing extraordinary. The portrait of Dr. 
Wiseman was displayed there, and a sight of it cured me of all 
curiosity to see more of him. Its coarse and sensual effect 
afforded a very striking contrast to- the refined and intellectual 
head of the Bishop of London, which was hung vis-a-vis , perhaps 
not without design. But of pictures I do not propose to speak 
particularly. 

In the cool of a charming May morning I sauntered forth, and 
crossed Westminster Bridge. It was too late for the full enjoy- 
ment of Wordsworth’s emotions, on that thoroughfare, for already 
the city was astir ; and yet there was enough in the scene it com- 
manded to make one stop a few moments and conjure up the 
imagery of his inimitable sonnet : — 

“ Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie 
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air! 

Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep : 

The river glideth at his own sweet will ; 

Dear God ! the very houses seem asleep, 

And all that mighty heart is lying still !” 

So I passed on to Lambeth, and came by Bishop’s Walk, undei 
vbe walls of the Archbishop’s gardens, to Morning Prayer at St. 
Mary’s. It was here, under the shadow of this Church, that the 


108 


IMPKEiSItfNS OF ENGLAND. 


poor Queen of James, the Runagate, stood shivering on a stormy 
night, with her unfortunate little babe packed up in a basket, 
awaiting a start to France. Had the baby only cried, how dif- 
ferent might have been the history of the British Crown and 
nation ! A great many Scotchmen would have lived quietly 
through the greater part of the succeeding century, who (as the 
baby slept soundly) were only born to be hanged, shot, and be- 
headed; and then, in all probability, we should have had no 
Waverley novels ! However, I now found the Church a ruin ; 
only its tower standing, and a bit of the chancel, while the re- 
building was going bravely on. But I am glad to say that the 
daily service was not therefore interrupted. The chancel was 
roughly boarded up, and protected from the weather, and there a 
good congregation was at prayer when I entered, two curates 
officiating. I was rejoiced to worship there, in such a primitive 
way. The bones of the brave old primate Bancroft, and of good 
Archbishop Tenison were beneath us as we knelt ; and the meek 
Seeker reposes hard by. 

After breakfast, at the Rectory, in a room overlooking the 
arcliiepiscopal grounds, I went to the river, and hunted up one 
of those deposed and antiquated things — a wherry , resolved to go 
by water, in the old fashioned way, from Lambeth to the Temple. 
Now, then, I was legitimately afloat upon “ the silent highway,” 
only that the hideous little steamers would destroy my anti- 
modern imaginations, as they paddled triumphantly by. I was 
trying to imagine myself in the primate’s barge, with Cranmer or 
with Laud ; or again, as I “ shot the bridge, with its roar of 
waters,” I conjured up the day when Dryden, with his fashiona- 
ble companions, took water, that they might the better hear the 
distant guns, by which they knew “ the fleet, under his Royal 
Highness, was then engaging the Dutch upon the coast, and that 
a great event was then deciding.” Ah ! it was the poetry of the 
Thames to go upon it with oars, and to hear the waterman 
lament the degenerate days of steam ; or to draw out his Allegro 
by questions about the “ champion of the river,” and the great 
rowing match soon to come off, to the probable discomfiture of that 
hero’s further claims to that dignity. The salt talked very bad dry 
English, but his wet vocabulary was truly rich ; and I left his 
boat at Blackfriars Bridge, with a sort of feeling that, instead of 
a few paltry shillings he had earned by his conduct on the voy- 
age, the not unusual compliment to affable sea-captains, of “ a 
vote of thanks, and a piece of plate.” 


TEMPLE GARDENS. 


109 


I now went to the Temple Gardens, where, according to great 
Will, began the wars of York and Lancaster, by the plucking of 
the two roses ; and, for a while, I sauntered about those pleasant 
walks, in the company of one of the benchers, feeling very much 
as if I had found a little Oxford on the margin of the Thames. 
After a subsequent visit to the room which Dr. Johnson once in- 
habited, and sauntering through courts and alleys, where one sees 
many a celebrated name painted over a door, as a business sign, 
we entered the Temple Church. Great restorations have been 
made here of late, at an immense expense, and generally in good 
taste and on correct principles, save that unsightly seats, too 
much like pews, encumber the space in front of the altar, which 
ought to be entirely open. What a reverend old Church ; built 
in the twelfth century by Crusaders, and consecrated by a 
Patriarch of Jerusalem! Under its walls, inside, lies Selden, 
and outside, lies Oliver Goldsmith ; but, to me, its most sacred 
interest is the fact, that here the immortal Hooker erected those 
noble defences of the Church of England which broke the rising 
tide of Puritanism, and ultimately saved us from its floods. Here 
that great “ Master of the Temple,” while his inmost soul was 
panting for a quiet country cure, bore patiently the heat and 
burthen of the day, in wearisome conflict with the dogged Tra- 
vers, who could always preach “ Geneva in the afternoon, against 
the morning Canterbury” On entering “ the Round,” you are 
struck with its venerable effect, heightened by the fine figures of 
the old Templars, stretched, cross-legged, upon the floor. These 
figures were sadly mutilated, but have been admirably restored. 
The Round is free from pewing, and opens into the choir, where 
the benchers’ stalls are ranged on either hand. The two societies 
of the Middle and Inner Temple worship here together, and their 
respective arms — a Pegasus and a Lamb — are interchanged in 
the showy decorations of the vaulting. 

I ascended into the triforia by a cork-screw staircase, pausing 
to enter the famous Penitential Cell — a dismal hole in the wall, 
in which a refractory Templar was sometimes confined, but 
which offered him the consolations of religion, by means of a 
hagioscope, or slit in the masonry, through which he could see 
the altar of the Church, and join in the devotions of his breth- 
ren — though it may be feared he more generally responded to 
their chant with anything but benediction. In the triforia are 
happily preserved all the monuments which lately disfigured the 
walls below : and so set are the benchers against any renewing of 


110 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. N ^- 

a bad example, that I was told they had resisted the erection of 
even Hooker’s bust in the choir. This I was sorry to hear, as 
one really felt the want of it on looking about the walls which 
once reflected the sounds of his earnest and persuasive voice. 
And what was my surprise, on my next visit, to find a workman 
setting it there, just as it should be ! It was covered. I begged 
him to let me see it. 4 Honour to thy old square cap, thou 
venerable and judicious Richard,’ said my inmost heart, as the 
well-known features emerged in all their dignity; and then I 
asked if I was so fortunate as to be the very first to salute it. 
The workman, who was the sculptor himself, assured me that I 
was. 4 It is well,’ I answered, 4 that an American clergyman 
should have the privilege. We know how to value in America 
the great defender of Law and of Religion, and much as England 
owes to Hooker, America owes infinitely more, or will do so 
when the Church shall have proved herself, as she will in the end, 
the salvation of the Republic.’ 

Under the roof of the Middle Temple Hall, where the bench 
ers, barristers and students still dine together^ was first acted on 
Twelfth night, 1602, Shakspeare’s play, so called. A visit to that 
noble hall, and a sight of its celebrated equestrian Charles First, 
by Yandyck, gave me great delight. There are also several other 
royal portraits, and many heraldic memorials of the great historic 
lawyers who once “ate their terms” within its walls. The hall 
of the Inner Temple is less striking, but of similar character. 
One wonders what future Lord Chancellor sits daily at these 
boards, among the students. But in the Inner Temple, I thought 
chiefly of that gentle Templar, more gentle than its armorial 
Lamb, who once sat with them, the author of “ the Task.” 

My next visit was an ambitious one. I spent an hour, or so, 
in climbing to the ball of St. Paul’s, within which, of course, I 
ensconsed myself, and indulged in very sublime reflections. The 
fact is, however, that it was very hot, and when some half dozen 
cockneys had wedged themselves in, after me, I verily thought 
the chances lay between smothering and being toppled down in a 
lump into the street (400 feet below) like a big pippin ; for the 
ball shook and trembled upon the rods which support it, in a 
manner by no means soothing to excitable nerves. I was glad when 
I got safely back to the 44 Golden Gallery,” and could cool myself, 
and look down on the roofs and chimneys of the million at one 
glance. Here is your true view of London ! Here that “ mighty 
heart” is seen, and felt, and heard in its throbbings. Here a 


BANNERS FOR TOKJENS. 


Ill 


thoughtful man finds food for reflection, and a benevolent one for 
interceding prayer. Oh, God ! to think of the life and death, 
the joy and misery, the innocence and the guilt, and all the mixed 
and mingled passions, emotions, thoughts, and deeds which are 
going on beneath these roofs, along those labyrinthine streets, and 
alleys, and in all this circuit of miles and miles, and close-packed 
human beings! God alone understands the issues there de- 
ciding: it is too much for one to dwell upon a single mo- 
ment ; but, thank God for the assurance that “ He remembereth 
that we are but dust:” yea, thank God, for a Saviour and 
an High Priest, who can be touched with the feeling of human 
infirmities ! 

In the successive stages of mounting to the ball, one passes, of 
course, many objects of interest. The original model of St. 
Paul’s is well worthy of inspection, as conveying Wren’s own 
ideal of the cathedral. He was so attached to it, that he cried 
when forced to depart from it ; but it strikes me as greatly in- 
ferior to the actual design. It might better suit the dilettanti , but 
except in the unreality of the second story, which is a mere 
screen to the roofing and buttresses, I can see nothing to regret 
in the substitution. The model room is also the depository of 
sundry old and tattered flags, which, after escaping “ the thunder 
of the captains, and the shoutings,” were formerly suspended in 
the dome. It was fashionable to say that they desecrated it — 
but why so ? The God of battles and the Prince of Peace are 
one: and I can see no reason why the flags of Waterloo should 
not be hung up before the Lord of Hosts, in His Holy Temple. 
The question is merely one of taste ; but the flags may be as well 
considered as tokens of peace, as trophies of war; and why 
should not the providence of God, as the giver of all victory, be 
thus recognized, by a significant acknowledgment, that to Him, 
and not to the Duke of Wellington, for example, we owe the 
general peace which has for so long a period blessed the world, 
since the overthrow of Napoleon f It is a sublime association 
with this cathedral, that it was first used for Divine Service in 
celebrating the Peace of Ryswick, which, with all its faults, has 
secured to England inestimable blessings : and, perhaps the vir- 
tual appeal to God, which is made by connecting His awful 
name with the awful issues of battles, may have a happy ef- 
fect on the national conscience. It may make men afraid of 
mere wars of ambition ; may keep in view the fact, that peace 
only should be the end of conflict ; and may also correct the 


112 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


sentimentalism which fails to see that war may sometimes he 
a just and a holy exertion of that magistracy with which God 
has girded the loins of rulers, and for which they are respon- 
sible to Him who commands them not to “ wear the sword in 
vain.” 

The Library is a place of little interest to one who has but 
little time. You look with reverence at the great bell, which 
thunders out the death of time from hour to hour, and only tolls 
when a Prince’s departure, or that of some great ecclesiastic, is 
to be announced to the nation. The vastness of the clock and 
its dial, give you fresh impressions of the enormous scale of every- 
thing about you, and the Whispering Gallery is reached with a 
sense of fatigue, which quite accords with this effect. Here a 
bore of a fellow shows off the petty experiment of the whisper, 
and stuns you by slamming a door ; after which you are vexed to 
find that the paintings of the dome have disappeared under the 
humid influences of the London climate. It is only when these 
first annoyances are over, that you regain entire command of 
your thoughts, and are able to measure “ the length and breadth, 
and depth and height,” of the noble dome within whose concavity 
you are now walking about, and perchance listening to the glorious 
swell of the organ below. The architecture of this dome becomes 
easily understood, as one ascends between its inner and outer sur- 
faces, and one cannot but regret to find that the former is so 
vastly disproportioned to the latter. Here the triumph of Michael 
Angelo, and the one grand superiority of St. Peter’s, begins to be 
powerfully felt. Wren has constructed his dome prosaically ; the 
rhetoric and the poetry of architecture are sublimely displayed 
in the work of the mighty Florentine. 

During the ascent, you emerge from time to time to open air, 
and get external views from the successive galleries. London 
chimneys are, at first, below you, and then the steeples, and then 
even its canopy of smoke and vapour ; and all its mingling sounds 
come to your ear at last like the murmur of the sea. “ How 
dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low.” The elevation is indeed 
considerable ; but with such a Babel at one’s feet ; with the fleets 
and the treasures of nations all in sight ; and with a million of 
men swarming like ants in their mole-hill, just below, it is one’s 
own fault if the moral elevation be not far more sublime, and if 
the impressions of the hour are not forcibly suggestive of a 
glimpse of the world from the mansions of eternity. 

After a very cursory inspection of the ill-judged sculpture in 


THE TUNNEL. 


115 


visible. The corresponding way, or the other half, is quite 
filled up with stalls and shops, in which they offer, here a raree- 
show, and there refreshments. A wretched grinding organ fills 
the cavern with doleful music, and little peddlers offer things 
for sale. So few, however, seem to be passing, that one wonders 
how they find it worth while to carry on this mermaid merchan- 
dise. You are so bored with their importunity, that it is not 
without an effort that you compose yourself, and reflect that 
fishes are swimming, and that the keels of countless ships, with 
the wealth of nations in their holds, are passing over your head, 
and that the very smallest breach in the arch above would 
“ hurl an ocean on your march below.” This is the one great 
idea of the Tunnel. I passed through and emerged at Rother- 
hithe, and then descending, returned in the same way. It 
occurred to me, what if Guy Fawkes the Second should fill this 
place with gunpowder, and touch off the magazine, by electric 
telegraph, just as a royal fleet was passing the critical point ! 
Strange to say, it might be so arranged, by means of the telegraph 
and Cardinal Wiseman, that the Pope himself, sitting in his arm- 
chair at the Vatican, might produce this terrible explosion in the 
Thames ; and I suppose he is quite as likely to do it, as he is to 
effect the other results which he and the Cardinal (or the Cardi- 
nal and he) are actually attempting. 

The shipping which one beholds in the vicinity of the Tunnel, 
is such as to produce a powerful impression upon the mind, in 
favour of the vast scale on which the commerce of London is 
maintained with the whole world. Truly — “ the harvest of the 
river is her revenue, and she is a mart of nations.” As com- 
pared with the port of New- York, the narrowness of the river 
here rather increases than lessens the effect, bringing the forest 
of masts and the bulk of steamers close together, while, in our 
great harbour, they are stretched along such a circuit of shore, 
or anchored in such an expanse of water, as materially dimin- 
ishes the general impression of multitude and immensity. It 
must be remembered, however, that in estimating the tonnage 
of London, a vast number of vessels are included which are 
never thought of at the Custom-house in New-York. Thus, 
our river craft, which supply the city with produce for the 
market, such as eggs, poultry and the like, with the whole fleet 
of our domestic steamers, go for nothing with us ; while on the 
contrary, the hoys that bring the like from the Low Countries 
and the coast of France, with the steamers that ply to other 


116 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


British ports, are all religiously reckoned in the commercial lists 
of the British Metropolis. With this abatement, one is sur- 
prised to see how respectable a proportion the tonnage of New- 
York bears to that of the populous Tyre of England ; a propor- 
tion which is probably destined to a direct reversal at no distant 
period, when once the Pacific and the Australian and Asiatic 
coasts are fairly opened to our direct trade through the Isthmus 
of Darien. 


CRYPTS OF ST. PAUL’S. 


113 


the nave and transepts, and a more affectionate visit to the statue 
of Howard, to the kneeling figure of Heber, and that of Bishop 
Middleton, which represents him as confirming two Indian child- 
ren, I had time to survey the crypts before the Evening Service. 
Here lie Reynolds, and West, and Lawrence, and several of their 
brothers of the Academy ; and here, in a sort of chapel, which 
admits the external air and light through a grating, lies the archi- 
tect himself — the truly great Sir Christopher. 

“ Lie heavy on him earth, for he 
Laid many a heavy load on thee !” 

But now you come to the circular vault, upheld by massive 
pillars, and lighted partially from the dome above, but more 
strongly by gas-burners, where you stand before the sepulchre of 
Nelson. The sarcophagus is an empty relic of Cardinal Wolsey’s 
ambition, but looks so modern, that one is tempted to believe he 
ordered it in prophetic spirit, expressly for its present purpose. 
After all, it is not Nelson’s sepulchre, for he is buried under it. 
The hero and the ecclesiastic have alike been compelled to accept 
a “ little earth for charity,” and this hollow semblance of a coffin 
dangles like that of Mohammed, between them. Alas ! that Nel- 
son’s tomb should suggest any meaner thoughts than those of his 
genius and glory ; but it was in fact a relief to turn to the simple 
monument of Collingwood, and to be able to say, here lies not 
only a decaying hero, but a slumbering Christian. 

I looked for the monument of Dr. Donne with especial interest. 
You grope amid interesting relics of old St. Paul’s, a fragment 
of Lord Chancellor Hatton’s effigy, a piece of Dean Colet’s, and 
another of Sir Nicholas Bacon’s. At last, in one corner of a 
dismal cell, feebly lighted by a grated window from without, you 
see the old worthy, in his shroud, precisely as Walton describes 
the figure, but leaning against the wall like a ghost, or rather like 
one of the dried corpses in the Morgue, on the Great St. Bernard. 
You think of his truly heavenly mind, and strange life ; of his 
rusty old poetry, and sound old sermons ; of his ancestor, Sir 
Thomas More, and of his descendant, William Cowper. It is 
strange that no one ever thinks of Cowper as the inheritor of this 
double genius, and as owing some features of his intellect not less 
to the rhyming Dean of St. Paul’s, than to the author of Utopia. 
One would hope that under the Deanship of another poet, the 
graceful and scholarly Milman, this one historic relic of the 
old cathedral, and of a brother of the sacred lyre, might be 


114 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


set in a fitter place, or at least more decently erected in the 
place where it now seems irreverently set aside to moulder and 
be forgotten. 

The Thames Tunnel was pronounced, by Canning, “ the greatest 
bore in England he* was bored to death by applications for 
Government aid in completing it, and hence spoke feelingly. It 
is now apparently done, though not finished, and is a cockney 
wonder, well worth a visit. Were it only in actual use as a 
thoroughfare under the bed of the Thames, thus realizing the 
original conception, it would not be without an element of true 
sublimity ; but to see it degraded to a miserable show, scarcely 
paying for its keeper, and serving only to enable the visitor to say 
that he has walked under the Thames, is enough to justify one in 
naming it a folly. Its uses, however, may even yet be demon- 
strated to be great, and I cannot but feel that this noble work 
has not been executed for naught. It will even yet have a 
history. Pity it is that the Duke of Wellington had no occa- 
sion to use it, in planning the defences of the city on the 
memorable tenth of April, 1848. It needed but the passage 
of a single regiment, under his command, through this mysteri- 
ous excavation, for actual purposes of surprise and stratagem, 
to give the place a charm forever ; and had such a passage been 
by chance accomplished in the night, and led by the Duke in 
person, for the sake of some masterly result, a new and romantic 
interest would have been added as well to his own marvellous 
story, as to that of the Tunnel itself. If the caverny wine vaults 
of the London Docks were but connected with the Tunnel on 
one side, and the Tower on the other, so that there might be a 
sub-marine passage to the Tower, from the Surrey side, it would 
at least furnish associations of a military character to this daring 
achievement of Brunei. 

Such were some of the random suggestions of my fancy, as 
I descended the shaft, on the Wapping-side. I entered the dark 
hole, with a vague realization of the descent of the Trojan 
hero into the shades of old. The first glance reveals a narrow 
street, with very narrow side-walks, or trottoirs , arched over 
with masonry, which is quite devoid of anything remarkable in 
itself. It is here and there a little damp-looking, but not more 
so perhaps than tunnels under ground. Gas burns along the 
dismal vault, but hardly lights it ; enabling one to amuse him- 
self with the thought of seeing fire beneath a river, and to pick 
his way comfortably; but otherwise only rendering darkness 


Lincoln’s inn. 


119 


ponderous Latin quotation, to his brother poet — “perhaps our 
heads shall yet be set with theirs.” Poor Goldy kept his wit pent 
up till he arrived at this spot, when, pointing Johnson to the 
grim skulls of his fellow- Jacobites, he slyly repeated — “ perhaps 
our heads shall yet be set with theirs !” In further honour of 
these worthies, I hunted up that orthodox chop-house, “ the 
Mitre,” and explored with awe the dingy precinct of “ Bolt- 
Court :” nor should I have forgotten, before leaving the Strand, 
to make worthy mention of “ Clement’s Inn,” where I surveyed, 
for a few minutes, what remains of that ancient haunt of 
Falstaff’s memories; remembering too that “forked radish” of a 
man whom Falstaff’s recollections did so vilely disparage. But 
time would fail me to detail my various ins and outs, as I surveyed 
the streets of London from St. Dunstan’s to Whitefriars. 

In company with a gentleman of the Middle Temple, I went 
one morning to Lincoln’s Inn, and surveyed its Hall and Library, 
which have been lately restored, in the style and taste of the 
olden time. I had the pleasure of looking at Lord Erskine’s 
statue, under the kindly guidance of one of his descendants. In 
the chapel, the pulpit where Heber used to preach, was my chief 
object of interest. Lincoln’s Inn Fields attracted my attention, 
for a time, though it is hard to conjure up, in such a spot as it is 
at present, the scaffold and the block, and poor Lord William 
Russell saying his last prayers. To the Temple gardens I then 
repaired for a little stroll, and there encountered the Crown- 
prince of Prussia, making his survey of the place, attended by 
his suite. He moves rapidly, and cuts a good figure. What he 
is, we shall be likely to know if we live to see him reign. From 
the Temple to Alsatia is but a step, and here I walked in painful 
honour of Nigel Olifaunt, as long as the sights and smells, which 
still preserve a thievish richness, would allow a mere romance to 
support my enthusiasm. And so from Whitefriars to Blackfriars, 
where, upon the very walls of ancient London, “ the Times News- 
paper” now flourishes, in its modern offices, and oft “ with fear 
of change , perplexes monarchs.” I had been so happy as to make 
the acquaintance of Mr. Walter, its eminent proprietor; and 
under his hospitable roof, in Upper Grosvenor-street, I met with 
some of the most agreeable personages whom I encountered in 
the society of the Metropolis. The day’s adventures closed with 
a visit to Herald’s College, and to Doctors’ Commons. A slight 
inspection of the latter sufficed ; but as I was in company with 
one who had business at the former, I lingered for a while in its 


120 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


worshipful chambers, and was glad to see something of the pro- 
cess of the anti-republican mystery to which it is devoted. Here 
are the historic books, from which pedigrees are furnished ; and 
here are the authorities for quarterings and emblazonings, and all 
such changes in coat-armour as marriages and entailments may 
make necessary. Some interesting relics are shown of the days 
when knights and tournaments, and battles too, were in higher 
esteem than now ; and one cannot but be entertained with the 
beautiful drawings and colourings of the divers artists here em- 
ployed to “ gild the refined gold” of British gentility. In the 
quadrangle of the College are the escutcheons of the Stanleys, 
marking the site of the ancient Derby House. 

I had met, more than once, with Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, 
and by his invitation, I took an opportunity to be a spectator at 
the Old Bailey one morning, when some flagrant criminals were 
to be tried. It is a horrid spectacle, but one would see every- 
thing, except the last act at Newgate, on many reasonable 
grounds. I shuddered as I entered the street before the prison, 
where such crowds of brutal human beings have long been wont 
to congregate around the gallows. Dr. Dodd was not hanged here, 
but I could think of him only as I entered the doleful little court- 
room in which he was tried. I found an inferior magistrate try- 
ing some petty offenders ; but when this was over, the judges, in 
their robes and wigs, made their appearance, preceded by the 
sheriff, dressed in a full court suit, and bearing a drawn sword. 
The judges were Baron Alderson, and my kind friend, Judge 
Talfourd. I was seated, by his order, in a raised box, or pew, 
at the side of the bench, apparently reserved for invited strangers. 
Directly one Francis Judd , , a youth of seventeen, was put to the 
j>ar, to be tried for the murder of his father ! There was about 
the very opening of this trial something stern and awful, which 
the poor prisoner appeared to feel. He stood pale and haggard, 
picking the sprigs of rue, which, according to custom, were stuck 
in the spikes before him, and seemed simply sensible of the fact 
that he was in the clutches of the law. There was a majesty 
about the administration of justice here, which is utterly wanting 
in our courts. The case was opened with short speeches — the 
witnesses were examined — the instrument which dealt the death 
blow was produced, and some bloody relics were exhibited by the 
policemen who had detected the culprit. The case was clear 
against the lad, but he looked stupidly on. Then came the sum- 
ming up. His counsel admitted the deed, but claimed that it was 




CHAPTER XV. 


London Sights and By-places . 

It is surprising how deep-rooted in one’s mind is the nonsense 
literature of the nursery, and how practically useful it often ren- 
ders itself in the serious occasions of life. The Cries of London , 
and the rhymes of Mother Goose may often point a moral of grave 
importance to mankind ; but not less were they serviceable to me, 
in enlivening many a nook and corner of the great Metropolis, 
whenever I gave myself up to a city stroll, as I frequently did, 
without plan, and in the merest mood of adventure. ‘ Heigho ! 
here is Holborn’ — or again — ‘this, then, is Eastcheap’ — or 
similar exclamations in view of St. Bride’s or St. Helen’s — such 
were my entertainments, as I moved musingly along, among stock- 
jobbers and Jews. The sight of Pannier Alley, or Pudding 
Lane, I am free to confess, raised emotions truly lively and refresh 
ing ; and seldom was I in want of associations, equally sentimen 
tal and profound, while I traversed, with all the reverence of a 
pilgrim, the mighty realms of Cockaigne. 

From Charing-cross to Temple-bar, in spite of the modern im- 
provements, one picks not a little of this sort of pleasure as he 
saunters along. Turning aside for a moment, let us step into 
Covent-gardens. There is the Church, so memorable from 
Hogarth’s picture ; and so illustrative of the piety and taste of 
the Russels, one of whom being forced to build it here, amid his 
thousand tenants, gave Inigo Jones the order, and suggested the 
munificence of his plans in the words — “ anything — a barn will 
do.” Accordingly, a barn it is. I searched its precincts for the 
grave of Butler, that marvellous Daguerreotypist of Puritanism, 
whose rhymes and aphorisms will live as long as the language 
which they so curiously shape and conjure into forms the most 


118 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


congenial to their pith and purpose. In the market one lingers 
amid the fruits and flowers, which here, every morning, offer to 
the Londoners a toothsome and brilliant display. “ Buy my 
roses ” — “ cherry ripe, cherry red” — “ strawberries, your honour” 
— and “ flowers all a-blowing, all a-growing” — such are the 
sounds with which you are for a moment emparadised, albeit in 
London streets. Here also you spy an alderman’s dinner at 
every turn, and wonder how Chatterton could have contrived to 
starve, within call of such a surfeit. But alas ! full many a rag- 
ged visitor looks on with lean and hungry stare, and famishes the 
more bitterly for the sight of plenty, which he cannot enjoy. 

But resuming our walk, we again step aside to look at the 
Savoy. To do this, we pitch down hill, towards the Thames; 
and there is all that remains of the famous Palace, in the little 
homely old Church, to which I did reverence in gratitude to God 
for the famous Conference, which resulted in enriching the 
Prayer-book with several good things, (and with the significant 
addition of two words in the Litany, rebellion and schism , amongst 
the rest,) as the result of the Restoration. Next we survey the 
splendours of Somerset House, not without regretting the oblitera- 
tion of the old historical landmarks which it has deposed. In 
the middle of the street, before it, is the Church of St. Mary-le- 
Strand, where stood, in good old times, that famous May-pole, so 
profane and odious to the Round-heads, but which makes so 
picturesque a figure in our visions of the past. It perished 
honourably at last, for when no longer used for Spring dances 
and revels, it was given to Sir Isaac Newton, who hung his teles- 
cope thereto, and made it serve him in exploring the stars. So 
come we to St. Clement Danes, where grave visions of Johnson, 
keeping Easter, and approaching the Holy Sacrament with fear 
and trembling, give dignity to its otherwise lack-lustre appear- 
ance. And here is the Bar, where we enter Fleet-street and the 
city, and where less serious memories of the great moralist afflict 
one’s desire to preserve propriety. Fancy him here, with Bos- 
well to look at him, holding on to a post, and making the night 
resound with his ha-ha , as he burst into earth-shaking laughter 
over his own wit. Even in his day, this gate of the city used, 
occasionally, to be set with the grim heads of decapitated traitors, 
and I remembered that, for once, poor Goldsmith got the better of 
him here, by an apt allusion to the ghastly spectacle. They had 
been moralizing together in Westminster Abbey, where Johnson 
had pointed to the busts in Poet’s corner, and whispered, in a 


THE OLD BAILEY. 


121 


only manslaughter. The judge told the jury it was for them to 
say whether it was murder or not. They conferred awhile — 
they looked at the prisoner, and he at them — they gave their ver- 
dict — manslaughter. Baron Alderson, who seemed to have his 
black cap just ready to put on, thrust it aside, and lifting his glass 
to his eye, to survey the poor wretch, said : — “ Francis Judd, the 
jury have found you guilty of manslaughter. For my own sake, 
and far more for yours, I thank God they have. Had it been a 
verdict of murder, I could not have found fault with it, and my 
duty would have been more, far more, painful than it is now. I 
have looked in vain for proper signs of emotion in you during 
this trial. I am sorry you have not shown some feelings of hor- 
ror at your awful guilt. A father’s slaughter ! The weapon 
with which you struck the old man’s gray head brought before 
your eyes, and even the covering of his pillow, stained with the 
blood ! Poor youth, he may have been stern with you, but still 
he was your father. Your punishment will be severe, but it will 
give you time to meditate and repent — the sentence of the court 
is, that you be transported for life.” The whole trial had just 
taken one hour and a half by the watch. Yet all had been fair, 
and merciful. What a contrast to an American trial ! Francis 
Judd was then removed, and soon another culprit, bullet-headed 
and brute featured, was standing in his place. I had seen enough, 
and, bowing to Judge Talfourd, I took my departure. I passed 
St. ’Pulchre’s, whose bell still tolls the knell of the convicts, and 
whose solemn clock is their last measure of time. 

I went into the crypts of one of the old London Churches, to 
survey its Norman architecture, and there found myself standing 
amid piles of coffins, of all sizes and descriptions. Open gratings 
let in the light from the streets, and disclosed the passers-by, who 
seemed unconscious of the fact, that catacombs were so near. I 
never was in such an awful place before. The smell was not so 
bad as I should have supposed would be the case, and chloride of 
lime was sprinkled liberally about. But here were the coffins of 
a family, piled one upon another — a consumptive mother, and her 
one, two, three, five, or six children, in successive stages of de- 
cay. What a story it told — that pile of mortality ! Here was 
a coffin, so large that Goliath might lie in it. “ Eight men never 
carried that coffin,” said the sexton, and on it I read the name 
of some beef and pork consuming Londoner, whilom a substan- 
tial pillar of the Exchange. The sexton next brought me to a 
case, which he opened, exhibiting the dried corpse of a female. 

G 


122 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


u This was here,” said he, “ in the time of the great fire of Lon- 
don, and was then dried as you see.” Next he came to a sort of 
chest, standing upright, and opening like a closet. He opened it, 
and displayed two mummy-like figures, singularly dried, and un- 
decayed. He moved their horrid heads upon their shoulders, and 
said — “ They were twin brothers that were hung, sir, long ago, 
sir, in George Third’s time.” I mentioned what I had seen to a 
friend in the Temple. “ I am surprised,” said he, “ but you have 
seen the poor fellows whose fate sealed that of Dr. Dodd. They 
are the two Perreaus hanged for forgery in 1776 ; of whom Lord 
Mansfield said to the King — ‘ they must be regarded as murdered 
men, if your Majesty pardons Dr. Dodd.’ ” 

At another time, I paid my respects to the famous “ London 
stone,” a Roman relic set in the wall of St. Swithin’s, and familiar to 
Shakspereans, as the throne of the redoubtable Jack Cade. Of 
course, I went to see Smithfield, reeking with smells, even when 
void of cattle and swine, and donkeys, but still venerable for the 
fires of martyrdom with which it was once illuminated. Hard 
by is St. Bartholomew’s, whose tower once reflected the light of 
those flames of the Bloody Mary. So too, I visited old St. 
John’s Gate, Clerkenwell, familiar from the vignette on the 
“ Gentleman’s Magazine,” and suggestive of Cave, and of John- 
son’s first ventures upon his patronage. I went through and 
through the gate, and surveyed both sides with curious interest. 
There it has stood since the Crusades, and the dust and cobwebs 
in its old turrets have been gathering for ages undisturbed. An 
old inhabitant told me she once opened a dark stair-way, and 
tried to go up, but the dry dust nearly choked her. So lounging 
about, I ranged through Aldersgate, Charterhouse-Square, and 
the Barbican, and, of course, to St. Giles’, Cripplegate. There 
I visited the grave of Milton, once so rudely profaned during the 
repairs of the Church, and still almost unmarked. Here Crom- 
well was married, while as yet “ guiltless of his country’s blood,” 
and here lies buried Foxe, the Martyrologist. Holy Bishop 
Andrewes was once incumbent of St. Giles’, and this is its 
fairest memory. In the churchyard is a great curiosity, noth- 
ing less than a portion of the old wall of London. Its founda- 
tions are of Roman origin, and what I saw was, doubtless, 
built by Alfred, to keep off the Danes ! I had never seen a 
piece of masonry so interesting. It is a bastion of massive 
structure, yet by no means formidable as the fortifications of a 
city. And did the soldiers of immortal Alfred really man this 


chaucek’s tabard. 123 

wall ; and did London ever need such a bulwark against the 
Danes ? 

My Miltonic enthusiasm being now excited, I sought out 
Bunhill fields, and the Old Artillery ground, near which he once 
dwelt. Moreover, I fared through Grub-street, in whose gar- 
rets have dwelt the rhyming tribes, idealized by Hogarth’s Dis- 
tressed Poet , from time immemorial. Tom Moore enjoys a laugh 
at our American “ Tiber,” formerly “ Duck Creek but what 
shall excuse the fact, — which, by the slightest substitution, I may 
tell in his own line — 

“That what was GVwZ>- street once is Milton now !’* 

The corporation of London must have made this change after 
a very heavy dinner. Grub-street, however, has been always 
famous for very light ones ; and if Milton did verily inhabit 
here, in her day, it is not surprising that Mary Powell bewailed 
her maiden life, and ran away into Oxfordshire. But enough of 
him and her. My reader will be more gratified to learn that on 
crossing to Southwark, I had no difficulty in discovering the 
mean and narrow entrance to an old-fashioned court, over which 
is still legible, the following inscription — “ This is the inne where 
Sir Jeffry Chaucer and the nine-and- twenty pilgrims lay, in their 
journey to Canterbury, Anno 1383.” It was “the Tabard” 
then, and it is, by some strange corruption, “the Talbot” now. 
Here then was that charmed spot, from which went forth those 
devotees of St. Thomas-a-Becket, who talked so merrily, and 
often so well ; and whose quaint portraiture as it has been pre- 
served by genius, so embalms the peculiarities of thought, of 
manners, and of language, which characterized our English fore- 
fathers, in that marvellous age, when Wycliffe in prose, and 
Chaucer in poetry, laid the foundation of our Anglo-Saxon 
Literature, and scattered many goodly seeds of a reformation in 
religion. I was entranced by the associations of the place, for 
it is yet an Old English Inn, and looks as if it might still be the 
identical hostelry, built as it is around the inn-yard, with gal- 
leries, and ancient windows, and odd devices. It is but a halting- 
place for wagoners and countrymen ; but, in spite of myself, I 
could not resist the temptation to enter its humble door, and 
order a little something, for Chaucer’s sake, to refresh a wayfarer. 

But, to resume my rambles, behold me, by various crooks and 
turns, visiting Hounsditch and Billingsgate, and St. Ethelburga’s, 
and St. Helen’s. This St. Helen, by-the-way, is the mother of 


124 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


Constantine, and a part of London wall she built herself; so 
that, from England to “stubborn Jewry,” her architecture is her 
monument. I surveyed what is left of Crosby Hall ; visited 
“ the old lady in Threadneedle-street,” otherwise called the Bank 
of England ; and, returning, heard the stupendous bells of Bow 
in their full harmony. That day was the festival of “ the Sons 
of the Clergy.” I arrived at St. Paul’s in time to see the pro- 
cession entering the great western door; the Archbishop, the 
Bishop of London, and the Lord Mayor, with other worshipful 
civic dignitaries, making its most conspicuous part. I lingered 
without the choir, till the services were quite advanced, and again 
had an opportunity of enjoying the effect of the distant service, 
and the rich reverberations of the dome. 






CHAPTER XVI. 


London Society . 

I have spoken of my daily occupations with little or no 
allusion to that, which proved to me the chief charm of life in 
London, its delightful society. It would be a poor tribute to 
modern civilization to regard the social pleasures of a brilliant 
capital, as presenting a secondary topic of remark ; and yet so 
sacred are even the most public of domestic civilities, that what- 
ever goes on under a private roof, seems necessarily invested 
with a character, to which types cannot do justice, without, at 
the same time, becoming sacrilegious. The ethics of travel are, 
even yet, by no means settled; for persons who should be 
authorities, have been often betrayed into the setting of an ex- 
ample, which, if all were free to follow it, would permit society 
to be infested with hordes of literary pirates, whose flag would 
be fatal to the freedoms and confidences of civilized intercourse, 
everywhere. On both sides of the Atlantic such social corsairs 
have too frequently paraded their spoils. It is not so much with 
the fear of their ignominy before mine eyes, as in view of that 
Golden Rule which they have flagrantly transgressed, that I shall 
restrict myself, in my narratives, to the most general allusions to 
social scenes, and to the mention of such names only as are more 
or less publicly known. 

One needs only a few competent letters as a passport to 
English hospitality. After first introductions, the way of the 
stranger who behaves himself, is as open as in his own land. 
Hospitality is, in fact, a truly English virtue. Nowhere else 
does the word imply so much genuine kindness. Nowhere else 
does it so completely make the stranger at home. Morning, 
noon, and night, it follows you up with its benevolent perse ver- 


126 IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 

ance, and seems to exact the minimum of ceremony in return. 
It does not satisfy itself with politeness ; it shows you the soul 
of friendship ; and that, while it allows you all the freedom of a 
passenger, when you might otherwise feel embarrassed by your 
inability to reciprocate such proofs of good will. The truth is, 
there is real heart in the civilities which are proffered, and where 
politeness is* rooted in sincerity, it is always considerate, inven- 
tive and unfailing. An English gentleman, whatever his circum- 
stances, as soon as he knows that you are entitled to his atten- 
tions, does all that he can to make you really happy. If his 
means are small he is not ashamed to offer you the best he can 
give, and he is pleased with his success, if he feels that you have 
accepted his hospitality in the spirit which prompted it. Con- 
tented, self-respecting, hearty Christian love is the root of the 
matter, in those true specimens of English nature, which are 
uppermost in my memory, as I write, and “ whatsoever things 
are lovely” are but the generous product of that sound and health- 
ful stock. Happy is he who has made a genuine Englishman his 
friend, for such a friendship implies the fullest confidence, and is 
a tribute to accredited integrity and worth. 

In London, during 11 the season,” there is an incessant round 
not only of fashionable entertainments, but also of such as are 
indeed feasts of reason and of soul. You are invited to break- 
fast at ten or eleven o’clock, and are sure to meet an agreeable 
company, as few as the Graces, or as many as the Muses. One 
after another the guests drop in, in morning dress, and among them 
are a number of ladies who sit at table in their bonnets, and 
generally add not a little to the liveliness of the company. There 
is nothing, perhaps, before you besides an egg, with your tea and 
toast; but the side-board is loaded with substantials, and you 
have a variety of fruits to conclude the repast. The party con- 
duct themselves as if time were plenty, and easy conversation 
goes round ; your host occasionally drawing you out, on subjects 
upon which you are supposed to be informed. After an hour or 
more, there is a general breaking up, and Sir Somebody begs you 
to take a seat in his carriage, which is waiting at the door, or Mr. 
Blank proposes walking with you to the “University Club 
House ;” or you draw off to keep some other engagement. Ten 
to one you breakfast somewhere else to-morrow, as the conse- 
quence of making yourself as little disagreeable as possible 
to-day ; and so it goes on to your heart’s content, through the 
week. 



DINING OUT. 


127 


You are invited to dinner, at any hour from five to eight, 
sometimes, of course, very unceremoniously, and sometimes in 
full form. You go at the hour appointed, and discover that 
punctuality has ceased to be fashionable in London. I was often 
surprised to observe the latitude given to guests, and taken by 
the cook. At dinners, everything goes on as with us, save that 
there is some form in announcing the guests, and also in placing 
them at table. The servant vociferously proclaims “ Mr. Green ” 
— as he flings open the door of the drawing-room, and if for a 
moment you find yourself abashed by the noise which you find 
yourself making, it is afterwards very agreeable to know who is who, 
upon the arrival of others. A reverend personage enters in an 
ecclesiastical coat, with silk apron, or cassock, and you hear him 

proclaimed as “ the Lord Bishop of ,” or as “ the Dean 

of A pleasing, but quiet-looking gentleman appears, 

under the sound of a name familiar as that of one of her 

Majesty’s Cabinet Ministers. “ Lord ” is announced, and 

you behold a somewhat distingue figure, wearing a glittering 
decoration around the neck, or upon the breast. Several literary 
or professional personages complete the company ; and when the 
ladies are waited upon to the dining-room, you are sure to be 
paired with the suitable party, and to find yourself placed with 
careful reference to your insignificance or importance, as the case 
may be. As to the table, the good old English courses seem to 
be giving way to foreign customs, as with us. It is not unusual 
to sit down to flowers and fruits, and confectionary, and to see 
nothing else for your dinner, except as the soup and other dishes 
are brought you in succession, the meats being carved by the 
servants, and all the old-fashioned notions, as to vegetables and 
side dishes, very much Frenchified, and revolutionized. Grace 
before meat, and after the removal of the cloth, was always 
faithfully performed in the circles which I frequented ; but I 
was sorry to hear that this new style of serving the table has 
somewhat affected those Christian proprieties, by confounding 
“ the egg and the apples” and leaving one in doubt as to where 
the dinner proper begins, or where it arrives at a legitimate con- 
clusion. 

The conversation at these dinners never seemed to me as 
animated as that of breakfast parties. Even the half hour after 
the withdrawal of the ladies, and the disappearance of servants, 
was less sociable and sprightly. I must say, however, that I 
entirely disagree with the profound Mr. Boswell, as regards the 


128 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


introduction of children at the dessert, which, in my opinion, 
greatly enlivens such occasions. In they come, rosy and beauti- 
ful, fresh from the nursery toilet, and bringing joy and hilarity in 
their eyes and faces ! The son and heir steals up to his father ; 
a lovely girl is permitted by mamma to come timidly to you. I 
was, indeed, a little surprised at a nobleman’s table, when his 
boy, a youth of twelve or fourteen, came to his side, to find the 

little fellow introduced as “ Lord C ,” instead of Harry or 

Willie , as it would have been with us; but, as nothing could 
exceed the familiar apd affectionate manner in which the title 
was spoken, I saw at once that it was natural enough to others, 
however unwonted to my Republican ear, to see a mere child so 
formally announced. After this announcement he was called 

simply “ C — as if it had been his Christian name, and I 

was pleased with his simple and unaffected manners throughout. 
English children appear to be “ under tutors and governors,” and 
generally behave with becoming deference to elder persons. I 
remember not a few of my little friends in England, with real 
affection. Blessings, then, I say, on the children, and may it 
never be unfashionable for them to be seen amid fruit and flowers, 
at an American or an English table ! 

I accepted a few invitations to evening parties, but what to 
call them I hardly knew. The superb apartments, in which 
they were given, were crammed with the company ; there were 
perpetual exits and entrances; cries were constantly heard be- 
low of — “ Lady K ’s carriage stops the way ;” while the 

incessant grinding of wheels in the street proclaimed the arrival 
and departure of the great and the gay, as they went the rounds 
of many a similar scene during the same evening. At a splen- 
did residence in Piccadilly, I was presented on such an occasion 
to the Duke of Wellington. He wore a plain black suit, with a 
star on tin breast of his coat; and when I first saw him he 
was standing quite apart, -with a noiseless and even retiring 
dignity of appearance, to which his white head gave the chief 
charm. I had no idea that I was near him, till turning sud- 
denly, his unmistakeable figure was before me. The rooms were 
one blaze of rank and fashion ; but for a while I could see no 
one but the old hero. When I was introduced, I could do little 
more than bow, and accept his polite recognition, for he was 
quite deaf, and I had observed that conversation was evidently 
distasteful to him. 

On another evening, just after the Queen’s State Ball, I was 


HISTORICAL COSTUMES. 


129 


amused to meet, in a similar scene, the dresses and costumes 
which had lately figured at the Palace. They were of historical 
character, and hence peculiarly interesting. Here was Henri- 
etta Maria, the Queen of Charles First, and there was a lady of 
the Court of Charles the Second. The stiff court fashions of 
the Georges were also represented, and one could easily imagine 
himself among Chesterfields and Rochesters. But, thank God, 
the British Peerage, in our day, is dignified by better men, and 
amid this brilliant masquerading, I first met with young Lord 
Nelson, so justly beloved for his active interest in all good 
works, and found him most agreeable in conversation, which, 
even in such an assembly, was entirely in keeping with his 
character. Here, too, I saw and conversed with the Duke of 
Newcastle, since an important member of the British Ministry, 
but then, and always, as I feel sure from his unaffected tone of 
remark, not less than from his general reputation, an earnest 
Christian, anxious to be a faithful steward, and to do what he 
can for the extension of the kingdom of Christ among all man- 
kind. 

The general interest felt in this country in the author of Ion, 
may excuse my particular mention of a party at Lady Talfourd’s, 
in which the literary and legal professions were more fully repre- 
sented. Here one saw the Barons of Westminster-Hall in their 
proper persons, without the burthen of robes and wigs : while 
moving about the rooms, one encountered a poet or popular 
novelist, and not least, the amiable host himself. He made kind 
inquiries concerning several of my distinguished countrymen, 
and touching upon matters of law, paid a very high compliment 
to the ability and legal skill with which the trial of Professor 
Webster had been managed in Boston. Judge Talfourd ap- 
peared then in the prime of life, and inspired me with respect by 
liis modest but dignified personal demeanour. He has since died 
a death, on the bench, more impressive than that of heroes on 
the field. 

With regard to the tone of society in general, I think every 
stranger must be struck with its elevation, whether intellectually 
or morally considered. An English gentleman is generally highly 
educated. Society consists of cultivated persons, male and 
female, whose accomplishments are not displayed, but exist as a 
matter of course, and as essential to one’s part in the duties and 
civilities of life. No one ventures to feel better informed than 
his neighbour, and hence there is a general deference to other 


180 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


men’s opinions, and a reserve in expressing one’s own, which is 
highly significant of extreme civilization and refinement. Such 
a state of society, however, has its drawbacks. Character often 
becomes neutralized, and genius itself dulled and flattened, where 
to distinguish one’s self is felt to be an impropriety, and where 
the manifestation of decided thought or feeling would be eccen- 
tric, and even rude. Hence I observed a sort of uniformity in 
manner and expression, which is sometimes depressing; and 
when upon some private occasion, I discovered that the smooth, 
quiet personage whom I had seen only in the dull propriety in 
which the pressure of company had held him, like a single stone 
in an arch, was a man of feeling, of taste, of varied informa- 
tion, and accurate learning, I said to myself — ‘ what a lamenta- 
ble waste is here ! ’ This man who should have been enriching 
the world with his stores of erudition and of reflection, has 
never conceived of himself as having anything to impart, or by 
which his fellow-man should profit. His accomplishments are, 
like his fortune and respectability, his mere personal qualifications 
for a position in society, in which he is contented merely to 
move, without shining, or dispensing anything more than the 
genial warmth of good humour and benevolence. There are 
thousands of such men in England, living and dying in the most 
exquisite relish of social pleasures, and deriving daily satisfac- 
tion from their own mental resources, but contributing nothing 
to the increase of the world’s intellectual wealth, and never 
dreaming of their attainments as talents which they are bound to 
employ. They live among educated men — knowledge is a drug 
in their market : of course they know this or that, but so does 
everybody else, and what have they to confer % It would be an 
impertinence for them (so they seem to feel) to teach or to dic- 
tate an opinion. Dr. Johnson has left a remark, in the records 
of his biographer, upon this tendency of refinement to abase 
individual merit, and I am sure a dogmatist like himself would 
not now be supported in English society. So very odd and un- 
accountable a phenomenon, even were his manners less forbid- 
ding, would be intolerable in intelligent circles, to say nothing of 
those of splendour and fashion. England exhibits just now the 
smooth and polished surface of a social condition which has no 
marked inequalities. Even rank fails to create those chasms and 
elevations which were once so striking and formidable. Gentle- 
men are very nearly alike, whatever their antecedents. All are 
well-informed, all have travelled, all are well-bred, and alike 


SAMUEL ROGERS. 


131 


familiar with the world. The Universities, too, have done not a 
little to assimilate characters. Minds have been fashioned in one 
mould, and opinions shaped by one pattern. Even language and 
expression, and personal carriage are reduced to a common for- 
mula. I closely watched the pronunciation of thorough-bred 
men, and often drew them into classical quotations, to observe 
their delicacy in prosody, and their manner of pronouncing the 
Latin. I prefer very much the German or Italian theories of 
classical orthoepy; but for mere longs and shorts, there is no 
such adept as an English tongue. They carry it into the vernacu- 
lar, however, against all analogy, and often startle an American 
by what seems elaborate pedantry and affectation. You are con- 
founded by an allusion to Longfellow’s Hyperion — accent on the 
penultimate ; or you are puzzled by the inquiry whether any doc- 
trinal differences exist between the English and American 
Churches — second syllable made studiously long ! Yet the man 
would be thought an intolerable ass who should display his 
knowledge of purely French or Teutonic derivatives, by a simi- 
lar deference to etymology : and no one thinks of carrying out 
this principle in all words of like analogy. Usage, however, 
with all its caprices, settles every dispute ; and we Americans 
have no resource but conformity, unless we prefer to appear 
provincial. English usage must be the law of the English 
tongue, and the fashions of the court and capital are the standard 
of usage. 

Among the authors of England, I had desired to see especially 
Mr. Samuel Rogers, who is now the last survivor of a brilliant 
literary epoch, and whose long familiarity with the historical per- 
sonages of a past generation, would of itself be enough to make 
him a man of note, and a patriarch in the republic of letters. 
Though now above ninety years of age, he still renders his ele- 
gant habitation an attractive resort, and I was indebted to him 
for attentions which were the more valuable, as he was, at that 
time, suffering from an accident, and hence peculiarly entitled to 
deny himself entirely to strangers. His house, in St. James’s- 
street, has been often described, and its beautiful opening on the 
Green Park is familiar from engravings. Here every English- 
man of literary note, during the last half century, has been at 
some time a guest, and if its walls could but Boswellize the wit 
which they have heard around the table of its hospitable master, 
no collection of Memorabilia with which the world is acquainted, 
could at all be compared with it. Here I met the aged poet, at 


132 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


breakfast; Sir Charles and Lady Lyell completing the party. 
He talked of the past as one to whom the present was less a 
reality, and it seemed strange to hear him speak of Mrs. Piozzi, 
as if he had been one of the old circle at Thrale’s. When a boy, 
he rang Dr. Johnson’s bell, in Bolt Court, in a fit of ambition to 
see the literary colossus of the time, but his heart failed him at 
the sticking point, and he ran away before the door was opened. 
Possibly the old sage himself responded to the call, and as he re- 
tired in a fit of indignation, moralizing on the growing imperti- 
nence of the age, how little did he imagine that the interruption 
was a signal tribute to his genius, from one who, in the middle of 
the nineteenth century, should be himself an object of veneration 
as the Nestor of Literature ! 


CHAPTER XVII. 


Oxford — Martyrs — Boat-race . 

My reader will be ready to forget London for a time ; and 
perhaps also to accompany me on an excursion. I went to 
Oxford, for a few days, to keep some appointments, and found it 
far more delightful than before, as the men were all up, and 
everything looking bright and lively. The trees in the gardens 
and meadows were in fine leaf ; and many shrubs in full blossom, 
so that what Nature has done for Oxford began to be as appa- 
rent as the enchantments it derives from Art. In the gardens 
of Exeter College I observed a Virginia creeper, luxuriantly 
covering the walls, and had a good opportunity of contrasting 
its effect with that of the ivy, for which, in our country, it is so 
generally substituted. It is certainly more cheerful, but lacks 
the dignity of its sullen rival. There is a fig-tree trained against 
the college walls, said to be that favourite of one of its former 
worthies, which a graceless Soph once stripped of its fruit, 
leaving only a single fig, which he labelled, “ a fig for Dr. 
Kennicott.” Many are the minor traditions of Oxford, of a 
similar sort. Every tree and shrub seems to have a history, 
and “green memories ” are here something more than a figure of 
speech. 

A Sunday at Oxford affords one, at least, the opportunity for 
constant attendance upon Divine Service. I went, at 7 o’clock, 
to St. Mary’s, where the Holy Eucharist was celebrated, and 
where I thankfully received the Sacrament, with a considerable 
number of the parishioners, and members of the University. 
After breakfast, at Jesus College, I returned to St. Mary’s, to 
hear the Bampton Lecturer — Mr. Wilson, of St. John’s. The 
lecture was delivered, of course, before the University, the 


m 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


Undergraduates filling the gallery, and the Dons the nave below. 
The lecturer, preceded by the bedels, entered in company with 
the Vice-Chancellor, to whom he bowed, as he turned to the 
pulpit stairs. Mounting to his place, and covering his face with 
his cap, he offered his private prayers, and then began the bid- 
ding-prayers, in the usual form — making special mention of St. 
John’s College, and of its benefactors, “such as were Arch- 
bishop Laud, etc.” But let no one imagine that this was an 
instance of spontaneous reverence for the Anglican Cyprian, for 
the lecture which followed might have moved the very bones of 
the martyr in his grave, so utterly did it conflict with the doc- 
trines of the Church. It was evidently received with great 
dissatisfaction. It was decidedly clever, as to form and struc- 
ture ; but savoured of Bunsenism quite too much for the taste of 
a genuine Churchman. It was read in a dull, dry manner, more 
befitting the doctrine than the occasion. But, I must own that 
I greatly admire this way of University preaching ; and the 
freedom of a sermon, thus delivered, by itself, apart from the 
service, and as a distinct thing, having its own time and object. 
Subsequently, the Church having been emptied, and filled again 
by a different congregation, the parochial service and sermon 
went on in all respects, as usual. Then, in the afternoon, there 
was a sermon before the University, preceded by the bidding- 
prayers, as in the morning ; save that the preacher made special 
mention of Oriel College, of which he was a member, com- 
memorating its benefactors, “such as were King Edward the 
Second, etc.” Then followed a powerful sermon, which evi- 
dently produced a great sensation. The Church was crowded, 
for the preacher was a general favourite. His manner was earnest, 
and often eloquent : and, in tones of most solemn and vigorous 
rebuke, he protested against the slavish dependence to which the 
State seemed resolved to reduce the Church. The Gorham case 
seemed to be in the preacher’s mind, and perhaps the flagrant 
elevation to the Episcopate of Dr. Hampden. 

The parochial service again followed ; after which I dined in 
the Hall of Oriel, where I met the preacher among his old 
collegians, and greatly enjoyed the company in general. After 
dinner, we went to service in the College Chapel ; and after this 
there were still services in several places, though I did not attend 
them. It would have been hard to have named an hour in the 
whole day when services were not going on somewhere in this 
City of Holy Places. 


NUNEIIAM. 


135 


In the Common-room of Oriel, I met with a very agreeable 
person, to whom I owed not a little of subsequent pleasure, and 
to whom I became warmly attached. At his instance, during 
the week, I substituted the more recherche pleasure of a visit to 
N uneham Courtenay, for the more ordinary cockney pilgrimage 
to Blenheim. I went in his company, and in his own carriage, 
and had no reason to regret my adoption of his advice. The 
grounds of Nuneham are proverbial for the beauty of genuine 
English landscape, and a range in this noble park affords con- 
tinual prospects of cultivated fields, and snug hamlets, and the 
silvery windings of the Isis through the meads. The gardens 
and shrubbery are interspersed with urns and tablets and inscrip- 
tions, in the Shenstone style, and among them I observed a 
cenotaph of the poet Mason. The taste of the more artificial 
charms of Nuneham is somewhat antiquated, and smacks of the 
Hanoverian age, now happily departing : but it does one good to 
see these things, as illustrating the period to which they belong. 
I was all the time thinking of Jemmy Thomson, as I rambled 
among the elms and yews of Nuneham ; and especially when I 
came to a clump of those spreading beeches, with smooth colum- 
nar trunks, on which his swains were wont to endite their 
amatory verses. Glimpses of Oxford, which one catches now 
and then, add a special charm to this noble demesne, and the 
Thames glitters here and there in the view to enliven a broad 
survey of rural scenery, which can hardly be said to lack any- 
thing appropriate to its English character. The Church of 
Nuneham is the grand mistake. It looks like a fane erected to 
the goddess of the wood, by some ancient Grecian, and provokes 
something less pleasing than a smile, when one learns that it is 
the successor of a genuine old English church, which was 
judged a blemish to the classical charms of the house and gar- 
dens. Of the rectory, although it is of modern design, I can 
speak with more satisfaction. It is a charming residence, such 
as an American parson seldom inhabits, but which one loves to 
see others enjoying, and adorning with every domestic grace. Here 
we lunched, substantially, concluding our repast with gooseberry- 
tart and cream, such as no one ever tastes except in England ; 
thus gaining a conception of the rich glebe and pasturage of 
Nuneham, which a more sentimental tourist might fail to carry 
away from a mere feast of the eye. 

We visited the parish-school, and I was particularly struck 
with the neatness and order of the little academy, and not less 


136 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


with the exactness of the instruction. The children of the 
peasantry were the scholars, and, instead of jackets, the boys 
nearly all wore the little plaited shirt of coarse brown linen, so 
familiar to us from pictures, but so unlike anything worn by 
American children, however humble in station. They were 
very closely examined by their teachers, and their answers were 
generally correct. America was pointed out on the map, and 
when I was introduced to the little urchins as an American, it 
was amusing to see their surprise. They seemed to pity me for 
living so very far away ! Then they were catechized. It did 
me good to hear the familiar words, so often uttered by little 
voices around the chancel rails of my own parish-church, now 
repeated, in the same way, by these little English Christians. 
Some of the subsidiary questions amused me, and not less the 
answers, especially those under the phrase — “ to honour and 
obey the Queen, and all that are put in authority under her.” 
Then came the clause — “ to order myself lowly and reverently 
to all my betters.” “ And who are your betters ?** asked the 
master: to which, “Lady Waldegrave,” and other names of the 
gentle inhabitants of Nuneham Courtenay, were most loyally 
responded. In practical matters of a more strictly religious 
character, the questions and replies were highly gratifying, and 
often caused the tears to spring in my eyes, in view of the mani- 
fold blessings which such instructions cannot fail to convey to 
a nation, and to the souls of all who receive them. Alas ! for 
the schools of our country, where the children come together 
under the blight of divers creeds, or of utter unbelief, and where 
in solemn deference to the spirit of sect and party, religion is 
daily less and less a tolerated element in the training of immortal 
souls ! 

We drove pleasantly back to Oxford, passing Sanford, and 
Cowley, and Iffley, and stopping at the Church of Littlemore, 
which has been lately much improved, and in which we found 
service going on. A drive into Oxford, from almost any direc- 
tion, cannot fail to please, so inspiring is the sight of the city it- 
self, and our return from Littlemore afforded, at least to myself, 
some new and charming views of its prominent features, which 
were now becoming quite familiar. 

For several days I lingered in the bewitching society of the 
University, sharing its hospitalities, and daily revelling in the 
inspection of its curiosities and antiquities. With what a spell 
does the enjoyment of those mornings and evenings revive in my 


ENTERTAINMENTS. 


137 


fancy as I write. A breakfast-party at Merton, the cool breeze 
of the morn coming in at the windows, fragrant from the 
meadows ; an extemporary lunch in the crypts of St. John’s, 
tapping the college beer, and inspecting the ancient masonry of 
its Gothic vaults, once the substructions of a monastery ; a din- 
ner in the lordly hall of Magdalen, with dessert and conversation 
in the Common-room ; an evening party at Oriel, among wits, 
and poets, and divines ! Who would not allow that such are 
substantial pleasures, realizing “ those Attic nights, and refections 
of the gods,” of which our fancy is full, in the earlier enthu- 
siasm of classical pursuits ! And then the discourse was so 
animating and refreshing. No hackney talk of dull common- 
place sentiment, or of small-beer literature ; but a roving, hap- 
hazard, review of grave and gay together ; a deep and earnest 
discussion of religious themes ; a sprightly dash into politics ; 
quick questions and replies about America, and republics, and 
democracies; illustrative quotations of a fresh and spontaneous 
character, often garnished with some ingenious misapplication, 
or original supply of words, for the sake of sport ; a sharp de- 
bate albout the civil wars ; a dissection of Macaulay ; a clever 
story of old Parr; and reviving anecdotes of Oxford and old 
times ; with a glow of kindly and religious feeling in all, without 
cant or ostentation ; these were the filling up of successive days 
and nights in those halls and chambers of dear, dear Oxford, 
which I cannot remember without a grateful thrill, and which I 
can only put aside from covetous regret, by calm faith that “ it is 
more blessed to. give than receive.” After all, it is in every way 
more worthy of a Christian, to toil in the wilderness, than to 
recline in the bowers, and to enter into the labours of* by-gone 
generations. Yes — dear as are the delights of a life in academic 
shades, and unparalleled as are the advantages of mind and body 
with which Oxford ennobles her children, I would prefer a 
Divinity chair at Nashotah, to a fellowship at Magdalen, or to the 
richest benefice which the University can bestow. It is hazard- 
ous to enjoy too much ; and how great the responsibility in such 
a world as this, of receiving anything for which we may fail to 
make a return to God and men, and which must go to make our 
stewardship more fearful, against the day of account ! 

We have gifts differing. Far be it from me to insinuate that 
the life of an Oxford Fellow is ordinarily an idle or useless one. 
Many of them are as laborious and as useful men as ever wrote 
or thought, and great are the blessings which they diffuse around 


188 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


them. Too often have their generous hospitalities been mistaken 
for habitual self-indulgences; and even guests who have tasted 
their wine without a murmur, have sometimes gone away to 
complain of convivialities, of which they were themselves the 
exacting proponents. But when the question is not as to them, 
but as to ourselves, we are surely at liberty to prefer our humbler 
and less favoured lot ! Shall we repine because we are Ameri- 
cans, and because we shall never live to see an Oxford in our 
own dear country ? God forbid ! I' love to think that it is 
theirs to enjoy, and mine only to remember ; and that if toil and 
self-denial are the lot of an American clergyman, he is, neverthe- 
less, fulfilling a mission more immediately like that of his glorious 
Master, and less fraught with temptations to make one’s heaven 
this side the grave. 

I had seen the Duke of Wellington and Samuel Rogers. 
There was one whom I desired to see besides, and on some ac- 
counts, with deeper interest, to complete my hold upon the sur- 
viving past. For sixty years had Dr. Routh been president of 
Magdalen, and still his faculties were strong, and actively en- 
gaged in his work. I saw him in his 97th year; and it seemed 
as if I had gone back a century, or was talking with a reverend 
divine, of the olden time, who had stepped out of a picture- 
frame. He sat in his library, in gown and bands, wearing a 
wig, and altogether impressing me as the most venerable figure I 
had ever beheld. Nothing could exceed his cordiality and 
courtesy, and, though I feared to prolong my visit, his earnest- 
ness in conversation more than once repressed my endeavour to 
rise. He remembered our colonial clergy, and related the 
whole story of Bishop Seabury’s visit, and of his application to 
the Scottish Church, which Dr. Routh himself first suggested. 
‘ And now,’ said I, 4 we have thirty Bishops and 1,500 clergy.’ 
He lifted his aged hands, and said, “ I have, indeed, lived to see 
wonders,” and he added devout expressions of gratitude to God, 
and many inquiries concerning our Church. I had carried an 
introduction to him from the Rev. Dr. Jarvis, and at the same 
time, announced the death of that lamented scholar and divine, 
whose funeral I had attended a few days before I sailed from 
America. He spoke of him with affection and regret, and also 
referred to his great regard for Bishop Hobart. I could not say 
farewell to such a patriarch, in the meaningless forms of ordinary 
intercourse, and, as I rose to depart, I craved his blessing, and 
humbly knelt to receive it. He placed his venerable hand upon 


DR. ROUTn. 


139 


my head, and said — “ God Almighty bless you, for Jesus Christ’s 
sake,” and so I took my departure, with my heart full, and with 
tears in my eyes. * 

Going, quite alone, to St. John’s College, I indulged myself in 
delightful meditations as I lounged in its gardens, and watched 
the young gownsmen shooting arrows at a target, or enjoying 
themselves about the walks. I went into the quadrangle, that 
munificent monument of Laud’s affection for his beloved college. 
1 passed on to the chapel. The door was not locked, and I en- 
tered it alone. Beneath the altar lies the Archbishop’s mutilated 
corpse ; and there, too, lies the stainless Juxon, whom he loved 
so well, and who served the last moments of Charles the First 
with the holy offices of the Church. I gave myself up to the 
powerful impressions of the spot, and spent a few minutes in very 
solemn meditations. In the library of the college I afterwards 
saw the pastoral crook of the martyred Primate ; the little staff 
which supported his tottering steps on the scaffold, and the cap 
which covered his venerable head only a few minutes before it 
fell from the block. 

In the street, before Balliol College, the martyrs Latimer and 
Bidley were burned. Perhaps the precise spot is not known ; 
but among the paving-stones, there is fixed in the earth a little 
cross, sunk to a level with the street, and simply designating the 
supposed site of the stake. It was one of my pleasures, during 
this visit to Oxford, to meet with Bishop Otey, then just arrived 
from America ; and I had the pleasure of conducting that excel- 
lent missionary prelate to this sacred spot of suffering for Christ. 
I shall never forget the enthusiasm with which he uncovered his 
head, as he stood there, and blessed God for the testimony of His 
Martyrs ; and I am sure he will forgive this allusion to the scene, 
for it greatly impressed me at the time, and even now seems very 
striking. “We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s 
grace, as shall never be put out” — said old Latimer to Ridley, in 
1555, and in spite of fire and faggot, and Armada, and Gun- 
powder plot, and Father Petrie, and Father Newman, there stood 
in 1851, the Bishop of Tennessee, blessing God for the light of 
that candle in the wilds of America ! A superb memorial of the 
three Oxford Martyrs stands not far from the place where they 
Buffered — and should have stood just here, where it would have 
been more conspicuous and appropriate — but I felt that such an 
incident far more powerfully attested the prophecy. How 
strange it seemed, in St. Mary’s, on the preceding Sunday, to 


140 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


reflect that from those very aisles, not longer since than three 
such lives as Dr. Routli’s might measure, the venerable Primate 
of all England had been ruthlessly dragged forth, by the hands 
of brethren in the priesthood, and by the same hands burnt to 
death, hard by, with the mockery of thanksgiving to God, and 
in the name of zeal for His glory ! Truly, Rome may thank 
herself for the abhorrence with which the universal Anglo-Saxon 
race (among whom a few emasculate exceptions are not to be 
reckoned,) regard alike her blandishments and her cruelties. 

How rapidly flew the hours in which I lounged in the Bod- 
leian and other libraries, or went from college to college, to in- 
spect its pictures and antiquities ! Here, a manuscript of Coed- 
mon, which the Anglo-Saxon professor kindly interpreted to me 
as I inspected it; and there, a Chaucer , and “the Game of 
Chesse,” from the primitive press of Caxton, exposed to my ad- 
miring gaze the small beginnings of the wonderful Literature of 
the English tongue. In the Ashmolean Museum I beheld, with 
still greater reverence, the jewel once worn by the immortal Alfred, 
to which I felt that Victoria’s Koh-i-noor was but a twinkling 
and lack-lustre pendant. In the curious old muniment-room of 
Merton, I was scarcely less pleased to behold the venerable 
charters and patents, engrossed in ancient characters, and sealed 
with quaint historic seals, by which their lands and hereditaments 
are still retained, and from which the whole Collegiate System 
of Oxford is derived. The chapel of this charming college is 
worthy of the noble foundation to which it belongs ; and, as my 
amiable cicerone was an accomplished architectural artist and an- 
tiquarian, I was not allowed to inspect its details superficially. 
His own hand had, very recently, restored the elaborate decora- 
tions of the vaulting, in beautiful colours and designs ; and he 
appeared to appreciate the high privilege which he had enjoyed, 
of mingling his own handiwork, in this manner, with that of an- 
cient and inventive genius. His mediaeval tastes had perhaps 
become a hobby with Mm ; I observed, with pain, some morbid 
symptoms of unreality in his excessive devotion to the mere 
aesthetics of religion ; but did not then suppose, as since has 
proved the sad result, that he was destined to add another to 
those children of the captivity, who, by the rivers of Babylon, 
have so estranged themselves from Sion, that their tongue seems 
indeed to have been smitten with the palsy of untruth, and their 
right hand to have forgotten its cunning. 

I saw, one pleasant evening, the first boat-race of the season. 


OXFORD BOAT-RACE. 


141 


Going into Christ Church Meadows, in company with several 
gownsmen, we soon joined a crowd of under-graduates, and 
others who were seeking the banks of the Isis. The rival boats 
were still far up the stream, but here we found their flags dis- 
played upon a staff*, one above the other, in the order of their 
respective merit, at the last rowing match. The flag of Wadham 
waved triumphant, and the brilliant colours of Balliol, Christ 
Church, Exeter, etc., fluttered scarce less proudly underneath. 
What an animated scene those walks and banks exhibited, as the 
numbers thickened, and the flaunting robes of the young acade- 
mics began to be seen in dingy contrast with the gayer silks and 
streamers of the fair ! Even town , as well as gown , had sent 
forth its representatives, and you would have said some mighty 
issue was about to be decided, had you heard their interchange 
of breathless query and reply. A distant gun announced that 
the boats had started, and crowds began to gather about a bridge, 
in the neighbouring fields, where it was certain they would soon 
be seen, in all the speed and spirit of the contest. Crossing the 
little river in a punt , and yielding to the enthusiasm which now 
filled the hearts and faces of all spectators, away I flew towards 
the bridge, and had scarcely gained it when the boats appeared — 
Wadham still ahead, but hotly pressed by Balliol, which in turn 
was closely followed by the crews of divers other colleges, all 
pulling for dear life, while their friends, on either bank, ran at 
their side, shouting the most inspiriting outcries ! The boats were 
of the sharpest and narrowest possible build, with out-rigged 
thole-pins for the oars. The rowers, in proper boat-dress, or 
rather undress, (close-fitting flannel shirt and drawers,) were lash- 
ing the water with inimitable strokes, and “putting their back” 
into their sport, as if every man was indeed determined to do his 
duty. “Now, Wadham!” “Now, Balliol!” “Well pulled, 
Christ Church !” with deafening hurrahs, and occasional peals of 
laughter, made the welkin ring again. I found myself running 
and shouting with the merriest of them. Several boats were but 
a few feet apart, and stroke after stroke not one gained upon 
another, perceptibly. Where there was the least gain, it was 
astonishing to see the pluck with which both winner and loser 
seemed to start afresh ; while redoubled cries of “ Now for it, 
Merton,” “Well done, Corpus,” and even “ Go it, again” — which 
I had supposed an Americanism — were vociferated from the banks. 
All at once — “ a bump !” and the defeated boat fell aside, while 
the victors pressed on amid roars of applause. The chief interest, 


142 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 




however, was, of course, concentrated about “Wadham,” the 
leader, now evidently gained upon by “ Balliol.” It was in- 
deed most exciting to watch the half-inch losses which the former 
was experiencing at every stroke ! The goal was near ; but the 
plucky Balliol crew was not to be distanced. A stroke or two 
of fresh animation and energy sends their bow an arm’s length 
forward. “ Hurrah, Balliol !” “ once more ” — “ a bump !” 
“ Hurrah-ah-ah !” and a general cheer from all lungs, with hands 
waving and caps tossing, and everything betokening the wildest 
excitement of spirits, closed the contest ; while amid the uproar 
the string of flags came down from the tall staff, and soon went 
up again, -with several transpositions of the showy colours— 
Wadham’ s little streamer now fluttering paulo-post; but victorious 
Balliol flaunting proudly over all. It was growing dark ; and it 
was surprising how speedily the crowd dispersed, and how soon 
all that frenzy of excitement had vanished like the bubbles on 
the river. 


/ 


CHATTER XYIII. 


IJJley — A Drive Across the Country . 

A visit to Magdalen School, and a subsequent dinner with the 
scholars, (who are the singers in the chapel), was another of my 
pleasures, from which I derived fresh convictions of the superior 
training of English school-boys, alike in physical, mental, and 
moral discipline. Everything was done with method and pre- 
cision. The boys looked fresh and rosy, and perfectly happy, and 
yet their master was as evidently strict with them, as he was also 
kind. Some of them will win scholarships in the college, and 
from that, fellowships ; and so will make their way to the highest 
posts of honour and usefulness, for which they will be thoroughly 
furnished in all respects. There is a new Educational College at 
Radley, several miles from Oxford, of which the projector and 
founder is the well-known Mr. Sewell, of Exeter — by whose 
kind invitation I went out, one day, to visit it. I was kindly 
accompanied by a distinguished Fellow of Oriel, who with several 
young men, whom he had enlisted for the purpose, gave me a row 
up the Thames to Iffley. We took our boat, in Christ Church 
meadows, and so went over the scene of the race which I have 
endeavoured to describe. I was unfortunately made steersman, 
and more than once found myself running the bow of the boat 
into the bushes, while I stared around me, at every beast and 
bird, and at every wall, and every bush, and at every green thing, 
with a greener look no doubt, to my unlucky companions, than 
anything in the scene besides. It was the Thames — or the Isis 
if you please — it was the river of the Oxonians; and I lost 
myself, in contemplations, on the most trifling suggestion of nov- 
elty, or of age, which surrounding objects presented. This little 
voyage was realizing to me the dreams of many years; and wheD 


144 


IMPKESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


we landed near the picturesque old mill, with which so many 
drawings and engravings have made eveiy one acquainted, I felt 
that anything but my pilotage was to be credited with our escape 
from shipwreck. My conscience accuses me of having paid atten- 
tion to everything except my immediate duty. 

Iffley Church, as every Ecclesiologist will tell you, is a study 
of itself. Five windows in this Church are said to present the 
characteristics of five periods of pointed architecture, extending 
through as many centuries ; while the details of enrichment and 
design afford innumerable specimens of inventive art, embracing 
somewhat of the rude and elemental Saxon, with the riper and 
more varied beauties of Norman embellishment. The church is 
supposed to have been built in the earlier part of the twelfth 
century; it affords many interesting examples of subsequent 
alteration and repair ; and has lately received much attention, in 
the way of retouching and restoring its olden beauties. In the 
churchyard is the remnant of its ancient cross, and also a yew 
tree scarcely less aged, but much decayed. The font, which 
stands near the door, is of large dimensions and of very curious 
construction, generally supposed to be Norman, and of the same 
date with the Church. Although the beautiful interior retains 
some useless appendages of mediaeval rites no longer practised, it 
is a most fitting and becoming Anglo-Catholic church, and one in 
every way satisfactory, as it stands, to the purposes of the English 
Liturgy. Without and within, it was, at the time I visited it, the 
most interesting object of its kind which I had ever seen. 

On resuming our boat, which had been lifted above the dam by 
means of a lock, we rowed about a mile further up the river, and 
then, taking to the fields, went across them to Radley. Here I 
met Mr. Sewell, and went with him to see Radley Church, a 
picturesque little temple, and then over his college, chapel and 
grounds. This college is a very interesting experiment, and aims 
to combine, on a plan somewhat novel, several important elements 
of academic and religious life. The taste which has presided over 
its establishment is very apparent, and not less the benevolence 
and piety of its founder. I was surprised to find it, although so 
entirely new, presenting everywhere the appearance of age and 
completeness. The architecture of the chapel especially, though 
plain in comparison with that of almost all older structures of a 
similar kind, is yet very effective ; and the service, as performed 
in it, by the aid of the pupils, was exceedingly inspiring and 
refreshing. After a visit which I was kindly led to protract 


BAGLEY WOOD. 


145 


beyond my intent, I returned to Oxford on foot, in the company 
of Mr. Sewell. Our path lay through Bagley-Wood, and never 
shall I forget the charming conversational powers of my guide, or 
the pleasure of wandering, with such a companion, through the 
tangled and briery copse, and intervening glades of that academic 
forest. At last we struck the Abingdon road, and entered 
Oxford by the bridge under the Tower of Magdalen. 

Amid so many recollections of a graver character, there is one 
connected with Oxford which never revives without exciting a 
smile. I went one day into the House of Convocation , where the 
Vice-Chancellor was conferring degrees, in a business way, very 
few, besides those immediately interested, being present. Among 
the candidates was one very portly individual, who, either from 
his advancing years, or because of some new preferment, had felt 
it his duty to incur the expense of being made, in course, a Doc- 
tor of Divinity. It was evidently many years since the proposing 
Doctor had been familiar with University forms and ceremonies ; 
and it appeared to me that some very rustic parish had probably, 
in the meantime, enjoyed the benefit of his services. When the 
performance required him to do this, or that, it was apparent that 
the worthy divine was not a little confused, while it was still more 
painfully clear, that his confusion afforded anything but feelings 
of regret to the junior portion of the academical body which sur- 
rounded him. When required to kneel before a very youthful 
looking proctor, an audible titter went the rounds, as his burly 
figure sank to the floor, amid the balloons of silk with which he 
was invested, to say nothing of the gaudy colours which he now 
wore, for the first time, with ill-suppressed satisfaction. But the 
Oath of Abjuration was to be administered, and this proved the 
most critical part of the proceedings: for, oath as it was, it was 
made almost a farcical formality, by the manner in which it was 
taken. As this oath is a little antiquated, at any rate, and seems 
hardly demanded by the present relations between a powerful 
sovereign and the mere shadow of a pontiff who now apes Hilde- 
brand, on the Seven Hills, it would seem good taste to go through 
with it with as little display of furious Protestantism as possible. 
So evidently thought the proctor, but not so the Doctor elect, 
whose powerful imagination probably suggested to him that 
Victoria was Queen Elizabeth, and Dr. Wiseman a Babbington, 
as no doubt he is. If her Majesty labours under similar impres- 
sions, she has at least one loyal subject, and it would have done 
her heart good to have heard the utterance of his loyalty on this 

7 


146 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


occasion ; for with most earnest emphasis did he swear, that “ ho 
did from his heart detest and abjure, as impious and heretical, 
that damnable doctrine and position, that princes excommuni- 
cated by the Pope, may be deposed or murthered by their subjects ,” 
&c., &c. So, no doubt, thought and felt all present ; but as the 
Doctor seemed to consider himself, for the moment, a sort of 
Abdiel, and spoke with an epic dignity somewhat unusual to the 
Convocation house, it was irresistibly ludicrous to behold the 
smothered merriment of the youthful Oxonians, who shook their 
sides while the Doctor fulmined, and who seemed to think both 
him and the Pope a little too old for Young England and the nine- 
teenth century. 

My excursion to Nuneham Courtenay proved but the preface 
to a much more important episode, in company with the same 
agreeable friend who was my guide on that occasion, and who 
now drew me into a change of plans and purposes, to which I 
owed much subsequent pleasure. We were at breakfast together, 
in the rooms of a common friend at Merton, when the scheme 
was perfected for a drive through Oxfordshire, in his private car- 
riage, and for several subsequent excursions, of which the centre 
should be his residence, near Cheltenham. A friend, then keep- 
ing his terms for a Master’s degree, at New Inn Hall, gave us his 
company for a few hours, on the way ; and a delightful compan- 
ion he proved, not only for his essential qualities as such, but 
because he happened to have been a tourist in America, and was 
able to imagine, in some degree, how an American must regard 
the contrast continually furnished him by a tour in England. 
Our road first took us over a comer of Berkshire, through a pleas- 
ing variety of hills and vales, sighting Cumnor on the left, and 
passing Wytham on the other hand, and so again entering 
Oxfordshire, by a bridge over the Thames, which here makes a 
bend among the little mountains. Our first stage was complete 
when we arrived at Eynsham, where we drew up at the village 
inn, and contrived to pass an hour very pleasantly, although, from 
the appearance of the place, one would say, at first, it was fit only 
to sleep in. How quiet a village can be, even in populous and 
busy England, and so hard by Oxford ! There stood the slender 
market-cross that had survived the storms of centuries, and the 
more violent batterings of Puritan iconoclasts. Broken and 
bruised as it was, it seemed good for centuries more, amid so 
peaceful a community as now surrounds its venerable tutelage. 
Whether the exemplary character of the present inhabitants be 


PARISH STOCKS. 


147 


owing at all to the parish stocks, which stand near the cross, in 
most Hudibrastic grouping with surrounding objects, I cannot 
determine ; but there they are, and I could fancy a stout brace 
of Puritans, of Butler’s sort, undergoing its salutary penance ; or 
even one of Hogarth’s unlucky wights experiencing the rude 
sympathies of men and boys in the passiveness of its bondage. 
How speaking a picture of rigorous parochial justice those queer 
old stocks, under lee of the market-house, afforded to my imagina- 
tion ! How many vagrant feet and ankles have there been relieved 
from the curse of Cain ! how many a vagabond they have furnished 
with persuasives to rest and meditation ! Really — one could not 
be properly pensive, in sight of such a commentary on human 
guilt and misery : for the parish stocks are but of distant kin to 
gallows and guillotine, and hardly more than little brothers of 
whipping-post and pillory ; their ignominy being rather that of 
ridicule than of scorn, and their severity being the very least of 
all the penalties of law. I did not know that such instruments of 
wholesome discipline were still in existence under the English 
sceptre, and hence my amusement and surprise to behold them, 
and to find so many memories of their history reviving at the 
sight ; among which were prominent those classical verses of the 
Anti- J acobin — 

“ Justice Oldmixen put me in the parish- 

Stocks, for a vagrant.” 

Verily a queer old place is Eynsham, from the days of King 
Ethelred, the Unready, who had a villa here, and those of King 
Stephen, who gave it the very equivocal privilege of a market 
“ on the Lord’s day,” under the patronage of its Abbot and its 
monks. On inquiring for the remains of the Abbey, we were 
informed that some new relics of its ancient chapel and cemetery 
had - just been discovered in a neighbouring field. We had there- 
fore the pleasure of seeing, sure enough, the encaustic tiles of its 
sanctuary, just laid bare, after ages of concealment in the earth. 
They were of various patterns and devices, St. George and the 
Dragon forming, apparently, a conspicuous part of the design. 
But°the old gardener who showed us these discoveries, went on 
to tell us that in digging further, he had just laid bare som q frames 
which he should like to have us see, and so leading us to another 
part of the ground, he showed us the frames , indeed, which 
proved to be nothing less than the skeletons of the old monks of 
Eynsham, protruding from their graves. Often had these same 


143 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


“frames” sung in the choir, and walked over those same tiles we 
had just been viewing. How old they might be we could not say ; 
but they were the bones of old Christians, and most probably of 
Christian priests, and there they had been laid in hope of the 
Resurrection, so that it seemed to me almost profane to be 
staring at them, as if they were a show. Requiescani in pace. 

The village church had been an appurtenance of the Abbey, 
and was, no doubt, comely in its day. It had suffered not a little, 
however, from whitewash, and other Churchwarden-isms. There 
had evidently been a fine rood-loft, but every vestige of it was 
gone, save that there was the solid stair-way in the wall, and 
there again the door-way, still open, through which the ancient 
Gospeller used to make his appearance in the loft, to read the 
Holy Evangel for the day. ‘Poor fellow,’ thought I, ‘when 
did he climb those steps, and issue from that door, for the last 
time? Was he indeed a Gospeller, grateful for a chance there- 
after to read the Word of God, in the vulgar tongue ; or was he 
some Marian Monk, who had raked the coals about Latimer and 
Ridley, in Oxford, and who trembled, while he sung his Latin 
Missal, lest the news of Elizabeth’s accession should prove too 
true?’ How strange it would seem to an American priest, to find 
himself officiating, Sunday after Sunday, in a church whose very 
walls are a monument, not only of the Reformation, but of 
“ Hereford Use,” and “ Salisbury Use,” or other usages now for- 
ever superseded, but which had a long existence, and have left 
their mark, alike in stone and timber, and in the vernacular 
Liturgy of the Church of England ! 

We left the little village, and pursued our journey very pleas- 
antly till we met the Oxford coach coming down, in full drive, 
but stopping as we hailed it, in behalf of our friend of New Inn 
Hall. He was obliged to return, for sleeping a single night out 
of Oxford, during his term, would disqualify him for his degrees. 
So we reluctantly saw him climb to a lofty seat, among a motley 
crew of passengers, and whirl away, as we waved him our adieu. 
We continued our journey to Witney, where again we paused, to 
survey its ancient cruciform Church — which would make a fine 
cathedral in America — and to take our luncheon with the good 
vicar, who received us very hospitably. I was surprised at the 
greatness of the Church, and the beauty of many of its details, but 
I believe it was once an Abbey Church, and its architectural 
merits are such as to have furnished not a few favourite examples 
to ecclesiological publications. The village itself is a decayed 


A BOOR. 


149 


one, having formerly been of consequence as the seat of a famous 
blanket manufacture, which made “ Witney ” a household word 
with housewives, especially in cold weather. Our drive next 
brought us to Minster-Lovel, the scene of the “ Old English 
Baron and next to a “ deserted village,” which looked as little 
like Auburn as possible, for it had been built by a pack of infidels, 
to show the world what a village ought to be, and so had speedily 
become as dead as Pompeii. It was now “ for sale,” but no one 
seemed disposed to buy, and I suspect it may yet be had at a bargain. 
England is no soil for fools to flourish in ; and it is a pity that 
when they find it out, they are so wont to come to America, 
where they join the Mormons, or set up for superfine repub- 
licans, and vent their hatred of England in our newspapers, 
which are then quoted by the writers in the London Times , as 
proof of American feelings towards the mother country. 

The country we were now traversing had once been scoured by 
the troopers of the fiery Rupert, and my friend, whom I will call 

Mr. V , finding my enthusiasm rising at the mention of his 

clarion and jack-boots, began to play upon me by suggesting that 
some mounds which we saw in the distance were the remains of 
one of his encampments. This was a very fine idea, but, resolved 
to hunt up the local traditions with respect to it, I asked a passing 
boor if he could tell me anything about the barrows. Oh, for a 
page of “ the Antiquary,” to give my reader some conception of 
the effect produced by the reply! “Praetorian here — Praetorian 
there,” said old Edie Ochiltree, " I mind the bigging o’t ;” and 
with equal bathos responded my boor — “ Them there be some old 
brick-yards J” “ Alas !” cried I — “ it is Monkbarns and castra- 
metation, over again ;” and a laugh arose from the Oxford pilgrims, 
at which the boor startled, and fled away, no doubt with strong 
persuasion that we were a pair of madmen, just broke loose from 
the deserted settlement aforesaid, of which, I should have men- 
tioned, the neighbouring peasantry seemed to entertain a very 
wholesome fear. 

Commend me to Burford, our next halting-place, as a village 
of most exemplary independence of this nineteenth century. 
Some old houses, which struck me as I entered it, bore an inscrip- 
tion by which I learned that a good burgess built them for a 
charitable use in the time of Queen Elizabeth. I should think no 
house had been built in Burford since that date, so entirely unlike 
a modern town is its chief street, with all its lanes and by-ways. 
Here, now, was England — the England we read of! None of 


150 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


your Manchester and Liverpools, but an innocent, sleepy old vil- 
lage that was of vast repute when those snobbish places were 
unknown. Here met a Church Synod, A. D., 685, to settle the 
question about the British Easter usages, and here worthy Peter 
Heylin was born in 1600. The little river Windrush runs through 
the place, and on its banks stands the ancient Church of St. John 
the Baptist, to which we repaired forthwith. Here we found an 
unexpected treat, in the exceeding richness of its Norman archi- 
tecture, and in the many delicate traces of its former perfection, 
which had escaped the ravages of time. The tower and spire, 
the south porch and the windows, afforded a most entertaining 
and instructive study. Some old inscriptions remained, entreat- 
ing the passer-by to pray for the departed soul of such and such 
benefactors. The interior enchanted me. Here was a “ Silves- 
ter aisle,” in which, for generation after generation, certain 
worthies of that name have been buried under costly monuments, 
most curious to behold. But what pleased me most was one of 
those huge monuments, like an ancient state-bed, with canopy 
and posts complete, on which lay, side by side, a worthy knight 
and his dame, persons of a famous repute under Queen Elizabeth, 
and the grand-parents of the stainless Falkland. “ Sir Launcelot 
Tanefield” was the name of the knight, and if I mistake not, he 
was, at one time, Lord Chief Justice of England, and Burford 
was his native place. From this charming old Church I could 
hardly tear myself away. I suspect few travellers have visited it, 
and I congratulated myself on having met with such a friend as 
Y , to draw me out of the beaten track, and show me some- 

thing of England, that is England still. 

Continuing our journey, we passed an old Manor house, pic- 
turesquely seated in a valley, at which I could have looked 
contentedly for an hour, so entirely did it answer to my ideas of 
many a manorial residence, which had pleased my boyish fancy, 
in novels and romances. Next we passed Barrington Park, the 
seat of Lord Dynevor, and soon after, another beautiful park, the 
seat of Lord Sherborne. And now, our journey lay over one of 
the Cotswold hills, which reminded me somewhat of a drive over 
Pokono, in Pennsylvania, so lonely and even wild did it seem, in 
comparison with the country we had just been traversing. We 
came to North Leach, where again we alighted to survey a Church, 
perched on a rising ground, above the houses of the village, which 
are mostly very old, with curious gables, and built along narrow 
lanes, in very primitive style. This Church had suffered more 


A PICTURE. 


15 ) 


from accidental causes, tlian that at Burford, but was scarcely 
less interesting to me. Its curious gurgoyles particularly arrested 
my attention, and within, some good brasses, and other monu- 
ments. It has a fine porch, and its general architecture seems of 
a period somewhat between the decorated and the perpendicular. 
We were now in Gloucestershire, and I shall never forget that it 
was in passing over a hill near Stow-on-the-Wold, that I first 

heard the nightingale. “ There,” said V , “ there is Philomela ! 

not mourning, but wooing ; ’tis her love-note ” — and I listened 
with a sense of enchantment. Perhaps I was in the mood to be 
delighted, for certainly I had never spent a day in such charming 
travel before, and I was conscious of a pleasure, which I cannot 
describe, arising from the realization of my dreams, in forecasting, 
through a long series of years, such a journey through England. 

In descending the Cotswold hills, I caught, here and there, 
some enchanting views ; little churches perched upon the brows 
of hillocks, or half buried in the vales; or farm-houses and cot- 
tages not less beautifully situated ; or the seats of country squires 
and other gentry, embosomed amid trees, or lifting their chimnies 
above a few lordly elms. But the charm of all was yet reserved 
for me; and just after sunset, as we wound around a broad hill- 
side, I came upon a seene, at which, it seemed to me, I might have 
gazed all my life without weariness or satiety. ‘ Stop — stop ! 

my dear V •, where are you driving*?’ said I, beseeching him 

to rein up, and let me look for a few minutes on as perfect a pic- 
ture of English scenery as ever Gainsborough portrayed, all spread 
before us, without a blemish ; its lights and shadows just as an 
artist would have them ; and yet vivid with nature, beyond all 
that an artist could create. The time, remember, was evening, in 
one of its sweetest effects of sky and atmosphere, cool and calm ; 
the lighter landscape deeply green ; the shadows brown and dying 
into night ; the water shining here like burnished steel, and there 
lying in shade, as darkly liquid as a dark eye in female beauty. 
The view was a narrow dell, just below the road, in which stood 
an old manor house, ivied to its chimney tops, and encircled by a 
moat. Smoke of the most delicate blue was floating thinly from 
its chimnies, into the clear air ; and just at hand was peeping, 
from a dense growth of trees, the belfry of a^very tiny Church, 
which seemed to be there only on purpose to complete the picture. 
Cattle were grazing in the meads, and under a vast and sombre 
yew tree, sat a group of farm-servants, shearing the largest sheep 
of the flock, the wool flaking off upon the green grass, like driven 


152 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


snow. While we gazed on this living picture, with mute plea 
sure, the soft notes of a bird added sweet sounds to the enchant- 
ment of sight, and I sat, as in a spell, without speaking a word. 

My friend V himself, who had been laughing at me all day, 

for my enjoyment of what to him were common and unsuggestive 
objects, fairly gave up at this point, and owned it was a sight to 
make one in love with life. Even now I have lying before me a 
letter in which he refers to this view of “ the sheep-shearing,” and 
concludes by the pathetic announcement that the horse to which 
we were indebted for that day’s progress, has since been sold to a 
coach proprietor, and now runs leader from Evesham to Stratford. 
“ Little thinks he,” continues the letter, “ as the lash of the cruel 
Jehu touches his flank, of the classic ground he travels; little 
recks he of Harry of Winchester, Simon de Montfort, or our 
friend Rupert — for Rupert had a desperate struggle thereabouts — 
or yet of Queen Bess, as he enters Bedford, in Warwickshire, or 
even of the immortal Will, as he halts at Stratford.” 

So winding down our road, amid firs and oaks, and enjoying 
new beauties at every turn, we came through Charlton Kings, 
into the broad and teeming vale, adorned by modern Cheltenham. 
It is a noble amphitheatre, to which the bold outline of the Cots- 
wold hills gives dignity, and which abounds with minor charms on 

every side. I was soon lodged at my friend V ’s, after due 

introduction to his family, including a visit to the nursery, where 
some lovely children were allowed to salute me with their inno- 
cent kisses, and thus to make me sure of a welcome to their 
father’s house. 


CHAPTER XIX. 


Worcester — Malvern — Gloucester. 

My first excursion with my friend V , was to Worcester 

and Malvern. In Worcester of course the great attraction is the 
cathedral, and thither we went immediately upon our arrival, 
and found Service going on. We lingered without the choir, 
and listened to the anthem, as it rose from the voices within ; 
and then, as the prayers went on, in the monotone of chaunting, 
varied by the occasional cadence of the priest, and the sweet re- 
sponse of the singers, we had an opportunity of worship which I 
trust was not only enjoyed, but reverently appropriated in devo- 
tion. Service ended, the verger, with his mace, issued from the 
doors of the choir, preceding the singers in their surplices, and 
the residentiary canons — far too feeble a force, however, for a 
cathedral, in which “ the spirit of a living creature ” should al- 
ways be “ within the wheels,” giving motion and reality to the 
routine of daily prayers, and fasts, and festivals. There is no ex- 
cuse for the present condition of the English cathedrals. They 
require the most thorough reforms to make them felt as blessings. 
At Worcester I began to feel that such was the case, and the 
painful conviction increased upon me, throughout my subsequent 
tour. 

We now surveyed the venerable temple, and experienced the 
usual annoyance of the verger’s expositions. Here was the monu- 
ment of King John; and there the chapel tomb of Arthur, 
Prince of Wales, the first husband of Queen Katherine of Arragon. 
Here, too, are shown the statues of St. Oswald, an early bishop of 
this see, and of Wolstan, another bishop who laid the foundation 
of the existing cathedral, in the eleventh century. The choir is 
impressive, but the eastern window struck me as too predomi- 


154 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


nantly green, and altogether as somewhat kaleidoscopic. A* ong 
the more modern monuments, a small bas-relief, by Bacon, struck 
me as very meritorious. A widow with her three children 
gathered about her, and bending to the storm of sorrow, was the 
fitting memorial of a departed husband and father. Or was it 
that the group reminded me of the treasures of my own far-off 
home, and of the scene which an Atlantic storm might so easily 
create around the fireside that would be trimmed for my return ! 
At any rate, it touched me, and reminded me that I was in a 
house of prayer, where ejaculations might be wafted from the 
heart, and answered three thousand miles away. Other associa- 
tions made me pause before the tomb of Bishop Hough, that 
brave old president of Magdalen, to whose resistance of the Pop- 
ish James I have referred before. The sculpture is by Roubilliac, 
but is free from the usual affectations of that artist; and the 
scene in Magdalen College is represented on the base of the 
monument. We lingered about the exterior for some time, and 
were particularly struck with the flying buttresses of the choir, 
as the most pleasing portion of the venerable structure. After a 
visit to one of the prebendal residences in the cloisters, we loitered 
about the town for an hour, and then took the top of the stage- 
coach for Malvern. 

Several coaches were starting at the same time for diverse 
points of the compass, and here we had before us something of 
the moribund system of travel of the days of George the Fourth. 
The flaming red liveries of the whip and the guard, with the notes 
of the bugle as we whirled over the Severn, gave one a sense of 
the poetry of locomotion which suggested some foolish sighs 
over the achievements of invention, and the age of the rail. 
However, it was something to be thankful for, that there was as 
yet no tunnel under Malvern hills. Crack went the whip — and 
away sprung the horses, and very soon the tower of the cathedral 
was all we could see of Worcester. We passed the Teme, and 
drove through Powick and Mather. The fields were fragrant 
with the blossoms of the bean ; the open road-side was garnished 
with flowering furze; and the cottages stood forth, neat and 
comfortable, amid embowering laburnums, and lilacs, and guelder- 
roses. ‘ Ah, yes — I grant you, England is a beautiful country, 
but you Englishmen do’nt know how to enjoy it half as much as 
your American cousins; not that we have not- glorious scenery at 
home, but that we have no such garden, as England seems to be, 
from one sea to the other.’ So I said to my companion. 


MALVERN. 


155 


We ascended the Malvern hills, on a brisk trot, by a good road 
stretching along the face of the hills, and soon entered the smart 
and showy town of Great Malvern itself, which overhangs the 
charming vale of Gloucester, and affords a view of the winding 
Severn, and many beautiful villages, churches, and seats. The 
towers of several abbeys, with those of the cathedrals of Gloucester 
and Worcester, adorn the prospect, and the distant ridge of the 
Cotswolds completes the picture. The Abbey Church of Great 
Malvern proved, of itself, sufficient to reward our visit to the 

place, but my friend V , found at one of the hotels, a party 

of his friends enjoying a brief sojourn in this delightful retreat, 
for the benefit of its air and springs — for “ Ma’vem,” as every- 
body knows, is a fashionable watering-place. Good reason have 

I to remember the spot where I first met the amiable W s, 

to whose subsequent attentions I owed so much pleasure on my 
northern tour; and I trust they too may be willing to remember 
our holiday at Malvern. I was particularly gratified with the 
adventurous spirit of the ladies, who insisted on doing us the 
honours of the place, considering us as their guests. Under their 
kindly guidance we climbed the hills, and visited the Holy Well, 
and the well of St. Ann’s, and finally reached the summit of the 
Malvems, where we gained a magnificent sight into Herefordshire, 
and could see to the best advantage the nearer beauties of the 
vale of the Severn. We walked along the ridge, pausing to rest 
awhile, and to enjoy the scenery, near the Worcestershire beacon, 
and so passing down on the Hereford side, and returning through 
a gap called the Wych, we parted with our fair guides at Malvern 
Wells, and taking a post-chaise started on a delightful drive 
across the valley. 

It was a beautiful afternoon, and our route took us through a 
great variety of country scenes. Now we skirted the base of the 
Malverns; and now reached the picturesque Church of Little 
Malvern ; and now descended, amid overhanging trees, into the 
valley of the Severn, partly darkened by the stretching shadow 
of the hills, and partly glittering with reflections of the descend- 
ing sun. My friend V , who seemed to have friends every- 

where, was so well acquainted with the neighbouring gentry, that 
he was quite at liberty to enliven our drive, by leaving the high 
road and crossing the park of this or that beautiful residence 
which happened to lie in our way. Thus we gained fine views 
of several elegant mansions and their surrounding grounds. At 
the lodge of one of these parks, as we entered, I was str ick with 


156 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


a curious tree, called the peacock yew, from the showy pavonazetto 
of its foliage : but the oddities of nature, after all, are far less at- 
tractive than her ordinary beauties. At last we re-crossed the 
Severn, and entered Tewksbury. It has been justly remarked 
that this place appears to have stood still for five hundred years. 
Its massive abbey, with its magnificent Anglo-Norman tower, 
has the advantage therefore of standing in the company of con- 
temporary walls and roofs, instead of being an insulated lump of 
Mediaevahsm, in a mass of nineteenth century brick and plaster. 
I was wholly unprepared for so splendid a specimen of cathedral 
architecture as this abbey proved to be ; and when I entered the 
sacred place, I was quite overwhelmed with its effect. It is of 
great length, and the aisles are separated from the nave by a 
series of immense Saxon pillars, which convey an idea of strength 
and sombre dignity wholly different from the impressions pro- 
duced by the light and springing shafts of the perpendicular and 
decorated Gothic. Its great window is a solitary example of 
such vast and solemn combinations of proportion and detail; 
its Norman arches being deeply recessed in the gigantic wall, 
and its height commensurately sublime. While we surveyed this 
stupendous interior, the rich shadows and faint illuminations 
produced by the close of day, greatly heightened the impressive- 
ness of the architecture and the awful associations of this ancient 
sanctuary and cemetery. It was indeed sublime to reflect that 
under the shade of these walls was waged the last battle of 
the House of Lancaster, and that the noble ashes of its heroes 
were everywhere under foot, as we paced its aisles. We surveyed 
one after another the tombs of Clarence, of Somerset, of Wenlock, 
and De Clifford, moralizing on the Providence which reduced the 
Norman blood of England just in the time and manner best suited 
to give the Commons room to rise; and which laid these proud 
patricians in the dust, that out of the dust might spring the free- 
dom and the power which now invest the world with Anglo-Saxon 
glory. God only is wise — God only great! Issuing from a 
small door in one of the aisles of the abbey, we entered a green 
and peaceful meadow, to which the deepening twilight gave a 
grave and rich effect, heightened not a little by the shadows of 
the abbey towers, and by the croaking of rooks and daws among 
the buttresses and pinnacles. Here was the fatal field where the 
red-rose was smothered forever in red blood. “ Lance to lance, 
and horse to horse ” — here its fated champions struck the last 
blow for Margaret and her son. Here the young prince himself 


THE AVON. 


157 


asserted, face to face with usurping York, the rights which his 
fathers had not less usurped from the fallen Plantagenet ; and 
here, for his boldness and for his fatal royalty, he fell beneath 
the rapier, the last blood of Lancastrian majesty spouting from 
his many wounds. Can it be, so green a field was ever so crim- 
son ? It was impossible to conjure up the scenes of a period so 
long gone by ; and yet not less impossible to stand on such a 
field, without some communion with the spirit of departed ages. 

With a worthy clergyman of Tewksbury, we finally quenched 
our enthusiasm in a cup of tea, and buried the swelling thoughts 
of Margaret’s wrongs, under the juicy morsels of a mutton-chop. 
As we sat at our repast, I observed that our reverend entertainer 
had “ a river at his garden’s-end.” “ Yes,” was his reply — “ the 
Avon!” I had supposed it the Severn, of course; but when he 
thus reminded us of its noble confluent, after our historical com- 
munion with Shakspeare in the battle-field, all my enthusiasm 
returned again, and, in spite of tea and mutton-chop, I felt a 
thrill to find myself so near the river of the immortal Swan of 
Stratford. Here, indeed, it finds its fitting union with the larger 
waters, and runs with Severn to the sea. But now, it seemed to 
me fragrant and vocal with a spirit caught from the banks of 
Stratford churchyard, and its murmurs continually repeated the 
lines — 

“ Clarence is come ; false, fleeting, perjured Clarence, 

That stabbed me in the field, by Tewksbury.” 

During my visit at Cheltenham, we contrived to spend a Sun- 
day in the country — and such a Sunday as should realize my 
ideas of an English Sunday among a rural population. Early in 
the morning we went to Bredon, and there surveyed its parish 
Church, just opened for Divine service, and exhibiting a neat 
interior, which, but for my growing familiarity with so many 
superior examples, I should have considered very noteworthy. 
In the floor of the nave is a plain slab covering the grave of 
“ Bishop Prideaux, 1650.” This Church, too, showed the hand 
of the restorer, and had been much improved and beautified in 
the spirit of what I suppose will be called the Victorian Res- 
toration. Leaving this Church, we started over the field for 
Kemerton. It was a beautiful morning — what I am wont to 
call a Gewge-Herbert- Sunday ; and as I went through the fragrant 
meads and harvest lands, or turned into a shady lane, amid the 
hawthorn hedges, I felt those quiet influences stealing over me 
which are the sweetest preparation for enjoyment in the house 


158 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


of God. By and by we descried above the foliage the tower 
of Kemerton Church ; and hard by was the parsonage, where that 
estimable dignitary, the venerable Archdeacon Thorp, gave us a 

most cordial welcome. Before service, my friend V called 

me aside into the churchyard, and pointed to a little grave beau- 
tifully decorated with fresh flowers. I understood at once that 
it was the grave of a beloved child he had lately lost, and whose 
transient but lovely life had shed a charm around these scenes 
of its sweet and holy habitation, and endeared them to the hearts 
of all who knew him. For a moment I entered into the sorrows 
of a bereaved parent, and wept with one that wept. 

The service in Kemerton Church is performed in some respects 
very simply, in others, one might say, elaborately, for most of it 
is sung. There is no organ, and the singers are plain farmers 
and village-lads, yet they have places in the chancel, and wear 
surplices, and sing with very agreeable effect. When Morning 
Service was over, I proposed a quiet ramble through the fields, 
with my friend, for my heart was quite full of the solemnities 
of which the Holy Communion formed a part. As we were 
about to leave, we observed the bell-ringers taking their stand 
under the tower, which opened into the Church, with great re- 
verence and propriety in their behaviour. The Archdeacon in- 
formed us that they were all worthy parishioners, who under- 
stood the nature of the humblest office in the house of God, and 
who rung the bells with a sense of serving the temple, and sound- 
ing forth the glory of the Lord. When we had gone about a 
quarter of a mile from the Church, we heard the bells ringing, 
accordingly, and sweet music did they discourse. They seemed 
indeed full of Sabbath blessing ; full of peace and good will to 

men. “ This, dear V ,” said I, “ This is enchanting, and 

more, ’tis heavenly ! Shall I ever forget this peaceful Sunday 
noon in England?” As I looked around, all seemed, as the Gos- 
pel would make the whole earth appear, if only sinful men would 
let it ; all blossomed as the rose. A church but a few rods in 
one direction — and another less than a mile before us — and 
many others near us, all around! All churches too — not so 
many tokens of religious strife and schism, but each to its own 
little nest of villagers, the centre of one faith, of one baptism, 
and the worship of one Lord. Ah — here is the true glory of 
England ! Mile after mile, in some counties, seems to be marked 
by church after church; each beautiful in its kind, the monu- 
ment of ancestral piety among its rural worshippers, and the 


may’s hill. 


159 


tutelary of their rude forefathers’ graves, that cluster beneath its 
eaves. One wonders what a dissenter is made of, when he be- 
holds these rural churches, and their happy influence over a 
rustic population. We extended our walk to- Overbury Church, 
an old Norman structure of small dimensions, beautifully restored, 
and in perfect repair. The congregation had just withdrawn, 
and the breath of prayer seemed lingering in the sanctuary. My 
ramble was completed before the Evening Service began, and 
certainly never saw I Sunday so liveried before, to celebrate the 
holy tide. The hawthorn was everywhere in flower; butter-cups, 
daisies, lilacs, cowslips, and every variety of contemporary blos- 
som, were to be seen in all the fields and cottage-gardens ; and 
the very sheep and cattle, resting in the shadow of the trees, 
seemed to know it was the holy day. Where else, save in Eng- 
land, is holy tide ever so entirely what holy tide should be ? 

The Evening Prayer was divided, as in all the English cathe- 
drals, so that the sermon followed the second lesson. Then 
came the Canticle, and the rest of the prayers. This arrangement 
follows the original idea of Catechising at the Evening Prayer, and 
has many advantages. I was privileged to be the preacher, and 
I spake with a sincere appreciation of the duty, as a privilege 
indeed. It appeared strange to me, when service was over, to 
reflect that Kemerton Church is many hundred years old, and yet 
that, in all probability, never had any one stood in its pulpit be- 
fore, who was not a subject of the English crown. 

Among the valuable acquaintances which I formed at Chel- 
tenham, I reckon myself fortunate in that of the Rev. Alexander 
Watson, now of Mary church, Devon, so well known by his 
many publications in defence of Church doctrine, and in aid of 
practical religion. It was in his company that I visited Glou 
cester, and added to my stock of travelling experiences another 
day of memorable enjoyment. After a pleasant breakfast party, 
at his hospitable table, we started in a private carriage, for a 
somewhat circuitous drive, to that “ godly city passing Leck- 
hampton, under lee of the tallest peaks of the Cotswolds, and so 
by Birdlip Wood, and Cooper’s Hill. Far away, on the other 
side of the valley, a prominent headland was pointed out to me, 
as May’s Hill. It is a not less conspicuous landmark from the 
Severn, and once served to save from shipwreck a mariner, 
named May, just returning from the sea; in consequence of 
which, he planted its summit with a clump of trees, and made 
provision for keeping them there perpetually. At a little distance 


100 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


I descried a hamlet, and a Church, which my friend pointed out 
to me as Chozen , at the same time informing me that it was spelt 
Churchdown. This is but one of many amusing specimens of the 
wide variance which often exists, between the spelling and pronounc- 
ing of English proper names. At Sliurdington we paused to visit 
its pretty Church, surrounded by a shady field, and found it un- 
dergoing entire restoration at the expense of the curate. Both 
the restoration, and the munificence of its promoter, were the 
rather interesting, as being no uncommon tilings. Such proofs 
of life and godliness are everywhere encountered, at the present 
day, in England. I found myself more and more delighted, as 
we drove on, with the scenery, and often with the road itself, so 
beautifully hedged and shaded, and affording so many points of 
interest to an observing eye. Here was the tower of Badgworth 
Church, and here was Brockworth. Churches everywhere — and 
everywhere, upon the face of field and farm, the tokens of that 
industry and thrift, of that order and decency, with which the 
Church alone can ennoble the aspect of civilization. The same 
charm which I had observed in the features of society, and which 
I had traced to harmony in religion, appeared to me, here and 
elsewhere, transferred in a great degree to the very soil, to its 
culture, and to its embellishment. Nature itself seemed to have 
borrowed a grace, and a glory, from the holy Faith, of which 
such monuments were visible at every turn, in spires and towers 
peering above the green trees, and gleaming amid the wide-spread 
bounties of God, whose adorable name they seemed to display as 
the giver of all. As we slowly ascended the slope of Cooper’s 
Hill, walking behind our carriage, and surveying the scene to 
right and left, with reflections such as these, we heard a note from 
the deep foliage of Birdlip Wood, which arrested us, and brought 
to my mind many scraps of poetry, such as Logan’s, or Words- 
worth’s — 

shall I call thee bird, 

Or but a wandering voice 1 

It was the cuckoo! I had never heard it before, except in 
wooden imitation from the perch of a German clock. I shall not 
soon forget its effects, upon the still beauty of the hour and the 
scene, as I heard it for the first time, in nature’s own sweet 
modulations and heart -touching pathos. 

Hucklecot new Church we only sighted, but at Upton St. 
Leonard’s we made a halt, and visited the Church, the parsonage, 


GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL. 


161 


and the school. The Church was a gem of its kind, with interest- 
ing monuments and architectural objects, and had been freshly 
restored. The schools were lately built by a munificent lady of 
rank, and the parsonage was apparently new ; the whole furnish- 
ing another instance of what is going on, almost universally. 
Passing Robinwood-hill on the left, as we continued our drive, 
we soon entered Gloucester, of which the glorious cathedral 
tower had long been the conspicuous object in our view. 

Here we visited the Church of St. Mary-de- Crypt, (lately re- 
stored) where the admirers of Whitfield would chiefly think of 
him, and where, perhaps, he ought to have been more thought of 
by the Church, and so saved from the extravagances of his subse- 
quent career. We went also to see St. Michael’s and St. Mary- 
de-Lode, (fresh restorations again) and finally visited the scene 
of Bishop Hooper’s fiery martyrdom. The death of Hooper digni- 
fies the otherwise inglorious memory of a prelate who did not 
a little to spoil his own work as a reformer, by tampering with 
Geneva. And it is curious how much of puritanism he seems to 
have bequeathed to his see; Glos’ter having been the proverbial 
haunt of the “ godlie ” in Cromwell’s time, and having bred the 
zealous evangelist, to whom I have already alluded as originally 
illuminating with his enthusiasm, the cold interior of St. Mary- 
de-Crypt. Strange, that after beginning here as a deacon of the 
Church, he should now lie buried under a puritan pulpit in New 
England, having completely revolutionized the Calvinism of our 
own country, and entailed upon it the Convulsionism of which it 
is now expiring. Had the zeal of Whitfield been according to his 
knowledge, and had the dormant Hanoverian age, which produced 
him, by the law of reaction, only known how to use him, he might 
have left behind him some less equivocal fruits of missionary en 
terprise. 

Before speaking of the cathedral, I must allude to our visit to 
Highnam, on the other side of the Severn. Here we found a 
Church, lately erected entire, at a cost of £30,000, by a single 
individual — nave, chancel, tower, and spire complete, and all 
affording a model of ecclesiastical art, worthy of standing in the 
neighbourhood of some of its noblest originals. To see a Vic- 
torian Church, and one thus erected by private munificence, com- 
paring so favourably with some of the most admired specimens of 
the middle ages, not only in general construction, but in the most 
elaborate details, was indeed refreshing to the eye and to the 
heart. The chancel and altar were especially noteworthy, 


162 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


adorned as they were with the most delicate sculpture, in Caen 
stone, and instinct with the life * and beauty of a healthful sym- 
bolism. Into the chancel opened a small sepulchral chapel, 
which exceedingly interested my feelings, and warmed my admira- 
tion of the whole. Two memorial windows were dedicated, each 
to the remembrance of a departed child, and between them stood, 
in a niche, the marble bust of their departed mother. Blessed 
religion of Jesus, which makes the dead in Christ so dear, and 
which so beautifies their memory: which so sanctifies the ties of 
earth, and so triumphs over death, in its power to render them 
eternal ! Here was a family nest, indeed, hung upon the altar of 
the Lord of Hosts ! My eyes glistened as I read, beneath the lovely 
effigy of the Christian wife and mother, an inscription to “ Anna 
Maria Isabella G P ; in fulfilment of whose pious pur- 

pose this Church was erected to the glory of God, by her hus- 
band.” Then followed the texts — including an allusion to the 
children, as well as their mother — “ And they shall be mine in 
that day when I make up my jewels — “ The Lord grant unto 
them that they may find mercy of the Lord in that day.” I can 
scarcely remember anything of the kind which ever more power- 
fully touched the springs of Christian sympathy within me ; those 
sacred springs of the heart, which can never issue in their fullest 
flow, till they have been fed by the hallowed love of the husband 
and the father. 

Returning to the town, I devoted nearly the whole of the re 
mainder of the afternoon to the cathedral ; accompanied most of 
the time, by the friend to whom I had owed the pleasures of the 
day, and to whom I at last bade a reluctant farewell. I had been 
greatly benefited, not only by his intelligent conversation on in- 
different topics, but by his earnestness in those particularly, which 
Christian priests should discuss most freely in each other’s com- 
pany. He left me to the kind attention of a worthy dignitary 

of the cathedral, the Rev. Sir John S , in the enjoyment of 

whose polite hospitalities I spent the evening of this charming 
day. 

The exterior of the cathedral, as seen from every point of 
vantage, in neighbouring gardens, or from the solemn seclusion of 
the surrounding precincts, was not less striking, in its way, than 
that of any similar structure I had yet beheld ; but the internal 
survey was more impressive, by far, than that of any other, ex- 
cept Westminster Abbey. It is one of the largest of its class of 
buildings, and in its different portions, presents an epitome of 


WARBURTON. 


163 


pointed art, in its several stages of progress through a period of 
five hundred years. Here is the Anglo-Norman nave, with 
massive columns, like those of Tewksbury ; then comes the choir, 
with its rich and delicate elaborations ; and then the Lady-Chapel, 
which is a little paradise of architecture. The solid crypts be- 
neath, dating from the tenth century, present a singular instance 
of groining, in their square and solid ribs, entirely unadorned; 
while the cloisters, in the style of the fifteenth century, seem to 
have exhausted the skill of the architect, in the exceeding rich- 
ness of their tracery, and pendant vaulting. The very defects 
of the building seem to have contributed to its graces, for when 
I had admired the aerial effect of a slender arch, springing 
athwart the transepts and attaching itself to the roof, as if its 
solid stone were a mere hanging festoon, I was told that this was, 
in fact, a blemish, and had been introduced into the original plan, 
only to strengthen the walls. I went into the triforia, and tried 
the whispering-gallery, but had no time to amuse myself with 
such small experiments, amid so many incentives to a higher em- 
ployment of my opportunities. I am sorry that the marvellous 
beauty of the Lady-Chapel still demands the hand of a restorer. 
The “ godly ” Cromwellians have left the traces of their hammers 
on all its carved work, and it is sadly despoiled. Would that 
the same skill and taste which reared the Church at Highnam 
might be permitted to make this holy place worthy of an English 
cathedral ! That the English people still suffer these mother- 
churches of the nation to remain as too many of them are, is one 
of their greatest national disgraces. When they are restored as 
they might be, and managed as they should be, then, and not till 
then, must they command the unmingled admiration and delight 
of every intelligent visitor. 

After a thorough inspection of the cathedral, in the broad 
light of day, I was kindly invited by Sir John to visit it again, 
as the day was about to close. We entered, by his private key, 
and were alone in the vast and awful interior. Going into 
the nave, he said to me, as I paused to observe the solemn 
perspective — “ Whose bones, do you suppose, are now beneath 
your feet?” I stepped aside, as he added, “You are standing on 
the grave of Bishop Warburton.” So much wit and genius in 
the dust ! Yet in what nobler sepulchre could earth to earth be 
delivered, to await the resurrection ? Hard by, are the monu- 
ments of two of the world’s benefactors; that of Jenner, who 
poured water upon the flame of the noisome pestilence, and that 


164 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


of Raikes, wlio first “gathered the children” into Sunday Schools. 
There is another modern monument, deserving of mention, as 
one of that purely Anglican type, which tends to divinify domes- 
tic love, and the holy relations of the wife and mother. A fe- 
male figure, with a babe, appear in the radiant marble, invited 
by angels into Paradise, from the waves of the sea. It is from 
the pure chisel of Flaxman, and commemorates one who died in 
the perils of childbirth, while encompassed by the perils of the 
great deep. 

Less pleasing, yet even more impressive, was the quaint effigy, 
in old carved oak, of Robert, Duke of Normandy, sumamed 
Curthose. You touch it and it moves, and you involuntarily 
start. It is, of course, very light, and lies upon the tomb so loose- 
ly that it is easily disturbed; and then, it seems as if the old 
Norman were about to rise and confront you, as an audacious 
intruder upon his repose. But how shall I describe the effect of 
the marble effigy of poor King Edward the Second, as I saw it, 
in the solemn twilight, and in the unbroken silence of the deserted 
cathedral? There was that outstretched figure, and that sad 
outline of a face composed in death, and hands clasped in resigna- 
tion ; but its dread appearance was as if imploring God, against 
the cruel murderers who had done him such awful violence. I 
thought of Gray’s sketchy but descriptive lyric, and muttered to 
myself : — 

“ Those shrieks of death through Berkeley’s roofs that ring ; 

Shrieks of an agonizing king.” 

The neighbouring peasant woke at the outcry of the tortured 
sufferer, and crossed himself; for he suspected what the devil 
was doing in the castle. Here now lies the victim of that horrid 
regicide, but there is something in the sculpture of his visage, 
that reminds the visitor, that “ God shall bring to light the hidden 
things of darkness.” This powerful impression lingered with me, 
as I paced the cloisters, and revived, when at a late hour of the 
night I was awakened by the chimes of the cathedral clock 
charming the darkness with a solemn tune, and lifting the 
thoughts of the listener to communion with his God. 


CHAPTER XX. 


The Court of St. James . 

Who knows not by heart the face of the Koyal Palace of 
St. James'? That such a house should have been a Palace in the 
days of Wolsey, seems strange enough to one who has seen at 
Oxford what even a college was, in Wolsey’s conception : but 
that it should still be a Palace, when Pall Mall and St. James’ 
street are full of club-houses, that would scarcely take any part 
of it for a kitchen, with the condition of setting it on their own 
ground — this seems stranger still. Yet a Palace may it long 
continue ; for not until the government of England shall be that 
of some revolutionary parvenu, will it cease to be a speaking 
symbol of the genuine dignity of the British Crown ! The 
Queen of England can afford to hold her Court in an old, worn- 
out mansion, and to let the opulence of her subjects erect the 
most striking contrast at its side. Build as they may — St. James 
is not cast into the shade : it is historical and royal. There are 
few illustrations to be found more a propos to the superiority of 
a mental over a physical grandeur. 

In returning to London from my Glo’stershire excursion, one 
of my purposes was to be presented at Court ; a gratification 
which I had been advised to allow myself, and which the Ameri- 
can Minister had politely proffered me. An experienced courtier 
supplied me with the necessary hints as to dress, and the etiquette 
of the Court ; and accordingly, on a levee day, I was duly pre- 
sented, as preparatory to going to Court, on the more splendid 
occasion of a drawing-room. The presentation of gentlemen 
always takes place at a levee, and no one of the male sex can 
attend a drawing-room who has not been previously presented. 
Ladies do not attend levees at all, and consequently a levee is a 


166 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


very dull affair, when compared with the brilliant spectacle 
which they make of a drawing-room, not less by their beauty, 
than by the glitter of their diamonds, and the flaunting of their 
trains. 

As a clergyman, I was freed from any great burden of expense 
in the matter of costume, canonicals being the proper dress for 
one of the priestly function, and my ordinary suit of robes being 
in very good condition. A pair of enormous shoe-buckles was 
almost the only additional item to be thought of ; and an Oxford 

cap was pronounced by my kind adviser, Sir John S , quite 

as proper as the absurd little apology for a three-cornered hat, 
(tucked under the arm,) which is considered the more exquisite 
finish to the clerical exterior, on such occasions. My next con- 
cern was to furnish myself with a Brougham, (or chariotee,) and 
with a driver wearing a sort of livery ; hackney-coaches not be- 
ing sufferable within the precincts of the Palace. A couple of 
cards, of unusual magnitude, one of which bore the name of my 
presenter, with my own, was the last requisite ; and thus muni- 
mented, I had only to fall into the line of aristocratic equipages, 
sweeping down St. James’ -street, and to await my turn for alight- 
ing at the doors of the Palace. 

How different the scene in Hogarth’s day, when they went to 
Court in sedan-chairs, and when the “ Rake, arrested for debt,” 
(as pourtrayed in his dramatic colours,) was the very ideal of a 
courtier. Yet there stands the old Palace, precisely as it figures 
in that graphic picture, and here are the successors of the charac- 
ters who fill up its back-ground, if not those of the hero himself! 
Such were my reflections as I found myself moving, very leisure- 
ly, in the procession of wheels, along the splendid street, amid 
crowds of gaping spectators, kept at respectful distance by the 
heels of the horses of the mounted guards, and by the vigorous 
exertions of the police. My further reflections were not of a 
very self-sufficient sort ; for who could be very much elated at 
finding himself cutting so little of a figure, and, in fact, mak- 
ing an absolute blemish, in such a pageant? Yet, I had no occa- 
sion to be ashamed, as I felt that my hired brougham was as 
much the thing for my republican self-respect, as the gilded 
coaches and gorgeous liveries before me and behind me were for 
titled lords and ladies. In fact, if I could not be vain, I was not 
without a little Johnsonian pride, in the entire consistency and 
reality of my turn-out. Hired court-dresses, and swords, and 
buckles, have been not unheard-of things for an appearance at 


COURT BEAUTIES. 


167 


Court. I was at least habited in no borrowed plumes, and was 
going in the same vestments which I had often worn in my pul- 
pit, to be presented by the representative of my own Govern- 
ment, as a plain American parish-priest. As for my hired 
brougham, it was countenanced by so many of its own kind, that 
its humble appearance occasioned no surprise even among the 
staring crowd, it being quite usual for professional gentlemen to 
use such an equipage. But the carriages of the nobility, in 
general, are truly superb : that is to say — if they are not ridicu- 
lous. They look, for all the world, (with their gilding, emblazon- 
ings and trappings, their powdered coachmen, and footmen hold- 
ing on behind, three in a row, with staves and cocked hats,) like 
the carriage of Cinderella in the nursery-book. And indeed, on 
a drawing-room day, the fair creatures within, in their ostrich- 
plumes, and lace, and diamonds, as revealed to vulgar eyes 
through the glass-windows, often seem to realize the fabulous 
beauty of Cinderella herself with their dazzling complexions and 
delicate airs. Not alone the vulgar, however, but many of the 
personal friends of the fair parties are viewing them, all the time, 
from the neighbouring balconies and shop-fronts. The levee at- 
tracts less of a crowd, and yet there was crowd enough, and very 
stupid was my approach to Pall-Mall. There — you wait till 
called in your turn, and meanwhile have time to look at the 
mounted trumpeters, pursuivants, and guards, in liveries of scar- 
let and gold, drawn up before the gates. At last, setting forward, 
you enter the court-yard, with as much of a flourish as your 
whip can make for you, and alight at the door of the Palace, 
making your way, first along a corridor, and then slowly up a 
grand stair-case, to the suite of apartments opened for the occa- 
sion. As you enter these apartments, you throw your card into 
a basket, and pass on amid files of yeomen of the guard, wearing 
the Tudor livery, and holding their halberds, and looking like old 
statues of wood or stone, or rather like the wax figures in a 
museum. When the time comes for you to enter the royal pre- 
sence, you are met at the door of the throne-room by a gentle- 
man in waiting, to whom you deliver your second card, that you 
may be properly announced. This card is handed to another 
official, and you are ushered through a file of ladies of honour 
towards her Majesty, who stands beneath a canopy, with Prince 
Albert at her side, the centre of the brilliant circle, and (as I am 
glad to say) making a truly royal appearance. Here your name 
is called out, and that of the party who presents you, and then — • 


168 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


an American simply advances and bows to the Queen, repeats the 
salaam to her princely consort, and so retires backwards, not 
turning his heel upon the royal presence. A British subject goes 
through the more formidable ceremony of falling on one knee, 
and kissing the royal hand. Now it so happened that her 
Majesty — owing no doubt to my attire, which was the same as 
that of her own clerical subjects — evidently mistook me for one ; 
and my gallantry was in consequence sorely put to the test, — for, 
advancing with great dignity, the Queen was just proffering her 
hand, and I was beginning to balance between the republicanism 
of my knee, and the courtesy of my heart, when the anxious official 
promptly repeated the form — “ presented by the American Minis- 
ter.” Of course her Majesty took the hint, and most gracefully with- 
drew, with a courteous recognition and a pleasant smile, while I 
finished my democratic homage with as much self-possession as 
was in my power, repeated my obeisance to Prince Albert, and 
bowed myself backward through the gorgeously apparelled circle 
of diplomats, making my especial respects to our own Minister, 
and so retiring into the adjoining apartment. 

On this occasion the Queen’s appearance impressed me, in all re- 
spects, more favorably than I had expected ; but, on the other hand, 
Prince Albert struck me as less princely, and less intelligent, than 
I had supposed him to appear. A lady would here interpose 
with the question as to her Majesty’s dress, and I must allow that, 
from my own observation, I could not speak with certainty on 
that important subject, but the Times next morning asserted it to 
have been — “ a train of white watered silk, chenee with gold, and 
green and silver, trimmed with tulle and white satin ribands, and 
ornamented with diamonds ; and a petticoat of white satin and 
tulle, with satin ribands to correspond; and a head-dress of 
emeralds and diamonds.” The Duchess of Sutherland and Lady 
Jocelyn were conspicuous among the ladies in attendance, and 
Prince Albert was attended by Lord George Lenox, with his 
groom and his equerry. It would have been a very magnificent 
spectacle, had not the small and stifled appearance of the throne- 
room given a cramped look to the royal party, and detracted from 
the majesty which always requires “ ample room and verge ” for 
its full effect on the imagination. 

The drawing-room was held in honour of the Queen’s birthday, 
about a week later. I could now go freely, without the ceremony 
of a presentation, merely depositing my card in the basket, from 
which, I suppose, the Times reports of attendants at the Palace are 


THE LADIES. 


169 


made up. In approaching St. James, everything was as before, 
save that the crowd was greater, and the carriages conveying 
ladies of rank more superb. On alighting, and entering the cor- 
ridor, I was enchanted by the display of splendour and beauty 
which filled it, and in which there was everything but order to 
make it all that one could imagine of a courtly pageant. Bril- 
liant indeed ; but such a jam ! The crowd was a perfumed and 
dazzling one j but not less a crowd than one in the streets. Here 
were peers and peeresses of every rank, and the daughters of 
peers, and new brides, and many a young beauty coming for the 
first time, and trembling with excitement, yet bewildered with 
delight. There is no denying the striking beauty of many of 
these high-born damsels ; their complexions were lily-and-rose, 
and health was as generally characteristic of their appearance as 
beauty. I observed the trepidation of some of them, as their 
finery was subjected to the pressure of the patrician throng, and 
as they gathered their trains over the ivory arm, evidently think- 
ing anxiously of the critical moment when they must allow it to 
flaunt gracefully, and catch it up not less so, in the presence of 
their Sovereign. No doubt all had been practised for weeks 
beforehand, till each was an adept, in the eyes of waiting-maids 
and mammas. Mingled with these gay creatures were grave 
judges in their wigs, and fierce-looking officers in their uniforms, 
and wild-looking Highland chieftains, bare-legged, but plaided 
and plumed, and making a showy figure in their clan-tartans. 
One of the yeomen-of-the-guard remarked, in my hearing, as I 
passed, that this was the greatest attendance at Court he had 
ever known. The Crystal Palace had filled the town, and there 
were many foreigners. I saw some Persian and other Oriental 
costumes in the throng ; and, on the whole, the poorest figures 
were those in the ordinary gentleman’s court suit, with the 
cocked-hat, and hair-powder of the last century. This style of 
dress seemed to be avoided as far, as possible, military uniforms 
predominating. In mounting the great stair-case, if our progress 
was slow, there was everything to relieve its tediousness. The 
ascending rows of glittering uniforms and fine female figures were 

a study in themselves. I observed the lovely Lady , whom 

I had met a few hours before, at a breakfast, and was amused 
with the entire change of her appearance which those few hours 
had made. Lord Lyttleton, who had been at the same breakfast 
party, now appeared in a military suit. Quite a number of the 
clergy were interspersed among the fair and brave ; and as a 

8 


170 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


polite young officer offered me precedence, and cautioned me to 
beware of his spurs, he whispered — “ Cedant arma toga is about 
all the Latin I retain.” Gaining a landing on the stair-case, we 
were next amused by observing the great personages descending 
by a corresponding stair-case, from the royal presence. A ser- 
vant called for the carriage of each party, as they successively 
appeared, and so one always knew who was coming. . At last 
came a great man whom all knew without any help, as tottered 
down, dressed in his Field-Marshal’s uniform, of which the gay 
decorations strangely contrasted with his white head and bowed 
shoulders. As I watched the old hero descending, step by step, 
I could not but think of the lower descent he must soon make 
into the dust, and oh ! what a moral was furnished, at that mo- 
ment, by the glittering honours he wore upon his breast. Dukes, 
earls, and cabinet ministers, and several ambassadors, with wives 
and daughters, came following each other in splendid succession, 
till at last I gained the ante-chamber, and had something else to 
look at. Here I could move more freely, and renew my impres- 
sions of the Palace. Several persons whom I had met elsewhere 
were so polite as to join me, and to enter into conversation, which 
very pleasantly beguiled the time. The exits and entrances were 
in themselves enough to amuse and fill up one’s time. Almost 
every variety of official decoration and costume, known to heralds 
and antiquarians, seemed to be worn by somebody, and amongst 
the comers and goers were some distinguished individuals in arts 
and arms. In this room were one or two of Lely’s pictures, and 
among them, if I remember rightly, that of Catharine of Bra- 
ganza. Queen Anne also looked on us, from the walls, and her 
Majesty’s odious old great-great-grandfather, George the Second. 
As I fell into the line which moved toward the throne-room, I 
came to a window looking over the park and private garden of 
the Palace. Oh ! what tales of Caroline, and Hanoverian, gos- 
sip and scandal, the sight recalled. There was her Majesty’s 
state carriage, awaiting the conclusion of the ceremonies, to con- 
vey her back to Buckingham Palace. The squab of a driver 
was sleeping on his box — a mere mortal in spite of his livery, his 
hair-powder, and the nosegay in his bosom. In my turn, I pass- 
ed before her Majesty, much as before. I hardly saw, in full, the 
ceremony of a female presentation, although there were several 
just before and after me, for the crowd was intolerable, and my 
escape from the presence of royalty into the freer apartments be- 
yond, was truly refreshing. I passed into an armory, or room 


CHARLES THE MARTYR. 


171 


ornamented with such old weapons and defences as one sees at 
the Tower. Finally, as before, I left the Palace through a long 
corridor, ornamented with portraits of the Kings of England, 
down to Charles the First. This portrait reminded me of the 
last night on earth of that sovereign, which he passed beneath 
this roof : and of the last sacrament which he received, in the 
chapel of St. James. This is the most sacred association with 
the Old Palace, and it is the only one that is enough sacred, to 
sink the ill memories of its Georgian traditions. The English 
underestimate Charles the First, and do not seem to reflect that 
,many of those elements of their Constitution, on which they are 
most wont to value themselves, have been bequeathed to them by 
the spirit in which he maintained the royalty, and suffered for the 
Church. If the brutal Cromwell is remembered with commenda- 
tion, because of some liberties which were the secondary results 
of his usurpation, why should not the failings of Charles be for- 
gotten, in gratitude for the great conservative principles which he 
taught the English people, by the signal ability with which he 
baulked his adversaries in debate, and by his truly sublime be- 
haviour in the last stages of his reign? Say what they will, 
thought I, as I looked at his portrait — had Charles the First been 
a Louis the Sixteenth, I should not, to-day, have seen a descend- 
ant of Alfred on the Throne of Great Britain. 




CHAPTER XXI. 


Harrow — Coventry — Warwickshire. 

I went into the country on Ascension Day to keep the feast, 
at an interesting place in the neighbourhood of Harrow. As I 
was rushing at the last minute to gain a seat in the railway train, 
I saw a hand beckoning me from one of the carriages, and so 
took my seat beside the Bishop of Oxford. He was going to 
spend the day at the same place, a fact of which I had not the 
least idea beforehand, but which, of course, greatly heightened my 
anticipations of pleasure, on making the discovery. Arrived, the 

Bishop was received by the Rev. Mr. , and I was kindly 

invited to accompany him to breakfast, after a brief survey of 
the attractions of the place. First, we went with our reverend 
host to see a sort of training school, in which he was giving some 
young men of limited means all the substantial parts of a Uni- 
versity education. We went into their chapel, and joined in the 
devotions with which they began their day. We were then con- 
ducted through the establishment connected with which was a 
printing press, worked by the pupils, and a chemical laboratory, in 
which they were producing stained glass for the chapel. In the 
garden I saw a novelty in the horticultural art, which struck me 
as not unworthy of imitation. A small piece of ground had been 
ingeniously shaped into a miniature Switzerland. Here, for 
example, was the Righi, with a corresponding depression for the 
Lake of the Four Cantons. A bucket of water poured into such a 
depression, makes the little scene into an artificial reality, serving 
to convey a geographical idea much more forcibly than any map 
could possibly do. From this college we went to an “ Agricul- 
tural School,” where some plain farmer’s boys, in their working 
attire, were gathered to prayers before engaging in the labour of 


THE ROYAL OAK. 


173 


the day. A certain amount of education is furnished to these 
lads, in return for their toil, and they pay some fees beside ; the 
plan proposing to elevate this class of the peasantry, especially in 
morals and religious knowledge. Thence, we went to the parish- 
schools which were also opened by prayer ; and then the children 
were catechised, in the presence of the Bishop. After this we 
adjourned to breakfast, and then went to the Church ; a very plain, 
but substantial and architectural one, lately substituted for its 
dilapidated predecessor. The Bishop preached, entirely extem- 
poraneously, having been pressed into the service against his 
intentions. As he eloquently exhorted us to follow our ascended 
Lord, I could not but think how entirely different from the ordi- 
nary American notion of an English Bishop, in labors and in 
spirit, was this estimable prelate. The Holy Communion fol- 
lowed, and there was a large number of devout partakers, repre- 
senting all classes of society. I was glad to see, for example, 
some plain farmers, in their frocks, and two of the railway-guards, 
in their liveries. 

While walking through the lanes, with the Bishop and this 
laborious pastor, a little boy ran up to us with oak-leaves, and a 
branch containing oak-apples. It was the 29th of May ; and the 
Bishop playfully asked the lad why he carried them. “To 
remember King Charles,” said the little fellow — as he further 
enforced the sale of these memorials of the Restoration. 

During the residue of the day, I shared the labours of the 
pastor, as he went about the parish, visiting here a sick person, 
and there a poor one ; and, towards evening, returning to the 
grounds of the training school, I joined in a game of cricket, 
which the young men were playing in high glee. Chasing the 
ball as it bounded over the field, or hid itself in the hedge ; 
scratching my hands with nettles, and joining in the shouts of 
frolic, with these happy youths; and finally sitting at my leisure 
to watch the beautiful evening sky, against which stood out the 
graceful spire and foliage of Harrow-on-the-Hill, while the neigh- 
bouring bells of Stanmore pealed a sunset song, I could not but 
murmur to myself, with Gray — 

“I feel the gales that from ye blow, 

A momentary bliss bestow, 

As, waving fresh their gladsome wing, 

My weary soul they seem to soothe, 

And, redolent of joy and youth, 

To breathe a second spring.” 


174 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


In rambling about, we had a good view of the former residence 
of Queen Adelaide, in which she had lately died. She was much 
beloved and respected for her unaffected piety, and her manifold 
good works. 

In the twilight we went to church again. The service was 
sung to a very pleasing chant, in which all joined with heart, 
and then the pastor entered the pulpit, and preached, extempora 
neously, on the text, “ It is expedient for you that I go away.” The 
sermon was an allegory, of exceeding beauty, perfectly sustained 
throughout, and that, to all appearance, without effort. I shall 
never forget it, nor the powerful impression it produced at the 
time. I have, since, quoted it entire, in my own pulpit, (with 
full credit to the source from which it was derived,) and was 
happy to observe the effect it was capable of producing, even at 
second hand. I left the scene of this pleasing day’s experiences, 
with a sweet elevation of feeling, inspired by the solemnities in 
which I had engaged, and by the sermons which I had been so 
fortunate as to hear. Oh ! lovely Church of England, how little 
they know thee who revile thee ! how unworthy of their baptism 
are they who have cast themselves from thy motherly bosom ! 

My next excursion was into Warwickshire. I went first to 
Coventry, a city of which one of my humble ancestry was Mayor, 
more than two centuries ago, and for which I entertained a sort 
of hereditary respect. It retains much of the aspect it must have 
borne during that worthy’s incumbency ; for a more mediaeval- 
looking town I saw not in England. Still unmodernized are its 
ancient streets and alleys. The houses jut out, story above story, 
their gables fronting the way, and so close together, in the upper 
parts, that neighbours may light their pipes with each other across 
the street, as they lean out of their windows. The famous three 
spires of Coventry belong to as many different churches, but seem 
to equalize the place in cathedral glories with Lichfield, its sister 
see. The spire of St. Michael’s, which is chief among them, is, 
indeed, singularly beautiful : and the triplet is well harmonized, 
and gives the town a majestic appearance as one approaches it. 
A town of many spires, in America, is generally a town of many 
wrangling creeds; and the major part of the steeples are but vul- 
gar rivals, realizing the droll idea of Carlyle’s eel-pot, in which 
each individual eel is trying to get his head higher than his neigh- 
bour’s. The fact, however, is less droll than melancholy, when one 
thinks of the sickening results, upon a community, of so many 
religions, all claiming to be reputable types of Christ’s dear Gos- 


PEEPING TOM. 


175 


pel, although so widely differing among themselves that some 
must necessarily be its pestilent antagonists. Dissocial habits ; 
cold incivilities ; open wars ; disgraceful rivalries ; bickering ani- 
mosities ; and a degraded moral sentiment — these are the things 
signified by your poly-steepled towns in our own land, and God 
only knows the irreligion and the contempt for truth, which are 
festering within them, as the result of these acrid humours ; but as 
yet, it is not generally so in England. The three spires of Coven- 
try all point faithfully to the throne of the Triune God, and are 
symbols of one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. Oh, that all 
who dwell under their shadow knew the blessings of their minis- 
trations, and received them in spirit and in truth ! 

The melodious bells of St. Michael’s rung, as I lingered about 
its venerable walls; but the interior was undergoing a costly 
restoration, and was so obstructed with scaffolding, that I could 
catch but little of the effect of its solemn length of nave and 
chancel, and of the intersecting arches of its aisles. I afterwards 
visited Trinity ; and also the ancient St. Mary’s Hall, the scene 
of the civic pomps of Coventry, and filled with antiquarian interest 
in itself and in its contents. It was not difficult to conjure up 
the ancient shows of the adjoining church-yard when Holy Week 
was celebrated by dramatic mysteries. But what interested me 
more than all the rest, was the grotesque head of a mediaeval 
clown, projecting from an old house, with a most striking expres- 
sion of vulgarly impertinent curiosity. The reader of Tennyson’s 
exquisite chef rf ceuvre, will, of course, recognise “Peeping Tom” in 
this description. Fabulous may be that beautiful legend of the 
Lady Godiva, but the men of Coventry believe it still : and still, 
on every Friday in the week of Holy Trinity, its annual fair is 
opened with a commemorative procession, in which a fair boy, 
dressed in well-knit hosiery, but apparently naked, rides through 
the ancient streets, with long and golden hair flowing from head 
to foot, and covering his body, as the representative of the sweet 
bride of Earl Leofric, who made the burghers of Coventry toll- 
free, and “gained herself an everlasting name.” They were 
making great preparations for this pageant when I was there, but 
on the whole I preferred not “ to march through Coventry with 
them.” 

From Coventry to Kenilworth, of course. It was late in the 
afternoon when I started the rooks in those old ruins, and sat 
down to watch their flight about its ivied towers. Here was, 
indeed, a place for thought, and for sentimentalism. How the 


176 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


romance of Scott, that once so bewitched me, (as I read it, 
stretched in boyish luxury upon the floor of the verandah of an 
American villa, on the dear banks of the Hudson,) now rose about 
me in a strange dream of reality; and how tormenting the 
endeavour to separate the true history from the charming fable! 
Here the finely wrought Gothic masonry, and delicate mouldings, 
and deeply recessed windows of the great banqueting-room, stand 
without a roof; and the ivy that climbs the solid walls, and twists 
among the shattered mullions and transoms, is rooted inside of 
the once hospitable hall, and beneath the very point in space, 
where once the haughty Queen Elizabeth sat in state, on a splen- 
did dais, with Burleigh, and Leicester, and Raleigh around her, 
while these cold, damp walls lifted about them their magnificent 
tapestries, and gorgeous blazonries of heraldic honour. In that 
bay window she once reclined, to look over the park, and to think 
thoughts too deep for utterance. The rich architectural work of 
these chambers betrays their former splendid uses; and one 
grudges, to the great serpent-like convolutions of the ivy -vines, 
the sole proprietorship of their surviving graces. Yet there they 
hang their melancholy leaves ; and the beautiful desolation is pos- 
sibly rich enough in its moral effect on the heart of the visitor, to 
make one contented on the whole, that the pile was once so great 
in design, and so exquisite in detail, and that the ruin is now so 
complete. Poor Amy Robsart ! 

Up and down I went, thinking only of her wrongs. Now the 
worn steps wound up to a turret, and now descended to a secret 
postern. Here was the orchard, and there the lake, and there 
the plaisance: now you look out of a prison-like window, and 
now you stand in the deep recess of a lordly oriel. Going into 
the ancient grounds, I scattered a hundred sheep, and away they 
went, bounding over grass as green and velvety, as they were 
white and fleecy. These are the successors of those red deer, fal- 
low deer, and roes, which once stored the cliase. The “ swifts ” 
darted from bush to bush, and the thrushes fluttered in the haw- 
thorn ; and then all was as still as if the past hung over the 
place like a spell, and as if it were haunted with its own history. 
Of all this noble castle, there remains only one outer part, which 
can shelter a human inhabitant. The barbican, beneath which 
Elizabeth must have made that superb entrance, is still a dwell- 
ing; but its occupant is a plain farmer, who would, no doubt, 
prefer to be more snugly housed. It seemed strange to find such 
a picturesque abode devoted to so homely a use. How glad I 


guy’s cliff. 


177 


should be to hire it, myself, for a summer lodge, provided I might 
have the range of the surrounding domains, without the annoy- 
ance of everybody’s intrusion, and provided I had nothing better 
to do than to read romances and history ! 

Here this farmer lives, in a room of panelled oaken wainscot, 
enclosed by walls that might defy artillery. The chimney-piece 
is a massive bit of antiquity, partly alabaster curiously wrought, 
and partly wood of rich and costly carving. The ragged-staff of 
Dudley is conspicuous, in the decorations ; it betrays the relics of 
its former gilding; the speaking initials R. L. tell the story of 
its origin, and the motto Droit et Loyal shows itself, as if in 
mockery of historical justice, amid the arms and cognizances of 
the once proud possessor of the princely castle of Kenilworth. 

The long twilight enabled me to visit Leamington Priors, and 
to get a very pleasing impression of its trim and fair abodes, and 
showy modern streets. Then away, by night, to Warwick, where 
I slept at the “ Warwick Arms,” after such a comfortable sup- 
per, as one finds nowhere, at the close of a traveller’s day, except 
at an English Inn. 

It proved a most beautiful morning, next day, and I was up 
very early, resolved, before tasting breakfast, to taste all the 
sweets of the hour of prime, in one of the most beautiful rural 
districts of England. I walked out some two or three miles, on 
the Kenilworth road, to Guy’s Cliff, and to the scene, beyond it, 
of Piers Gaveson’s murder. The beauty of the day and of the 
scenery, the song of birds, and the blossoms of the hawthorn 
along the road, were singularly in keeping with the imagery by 
which the poet has pictured the early history of a reign, strik- 
ingly coincident with that in which Gaveson’s fortune was made 
and ruined : — 

“ Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, 

While proudly riding o’er the azure realm, 

In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes, 

Youth on the prow, and pleasure at the helm I” 

At length, leaping a slight fence, I made my way through a 
clovered field, and then through a pretty grove, to what was 
once Blacklow hill. Here is still a sort of cave, which I readily 
found among the hazels ; and on the eminence above it, rises a 
strongly built and severe looking monument, surmounted by a 
cross of solid proportions, the whole singularly adapted to the 
place and purpose. It is a work of late years, and the happy 
thought of the proprietor of Guy’s Cliff. There was something 


17S 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


stirring, too, in reading, in the loneliness of that morning hour, 
the following inscription on the face of the monument, viz : — “In 
the hollow of this rock was beheaded , July 1, 1312, by barons lawless 
as himself Piers Gaveson , Earl of Cornewall , the minion of a hateful 
Icing , and in life and death a memorable instance of misrule.” What 
a picture of the ferocious past was conjured up by that expres- 
sion — “ beheaded by barons as lawless as himself.” The sweet 
Avon was flowing through the meads below ; there gleamed the 
feudal towers of Warwick, in the glowing sunrise ; and just so it 
was, that July morning, five hundred years ago, when this rock 
rang with oaths and curses, the barkings of that fierce Guy de 
Beauchamp, whom Gaveson had called “the black hound of 
Arden.” That insult was here avenged in blood ; but it only 
served to fire the thirst of the regicide. Those features upturned to 
heaven, in the choir of Gloucester, and those imploring hands of 
poor King Edward, came back, in thought, once more. 

Pictures have made my readers familiar with the scenery of 
Guy’s Cliff. There it stands, on the Avon — in unpretending 
beauty, ivied up to its chimnies, here an oriel, and there a turret, 
the very ideal of a fair lady’s bower, and one of the goodliest of 
“the merry homes of England.” There is a mill over against it, 
where I stood and admired its quiet romance, in the glory of that 
summer morning, as the gilding of the sunlight lay on the cold 
gray of its towers. At the mill, the farmer-lads were washing 
sheep, and as they plunged in the fleecy ewes, and soused them 
over and over again, in the sparkling waters of the Avon, I 
thought an artist would ask no fairer study, for his pencil, than 
the scene before me. I confess I could not safely look on it with- 
out repeating the Tenth Commandment , and I quite deposed my 
project of renting the Gate-house of Kenilworth, in thinking how 
much better I should like Guy’s Cliff for my habitation. 

My walk into Warwick, again, was full of pleasure. I heard 
the clock strike in the tower of St. Mary’s, which I saw over 
a forest of trees, gaily lighted by the sun ; and then came a tune 
from its chime. I paused before old houses, and stared at 
the curious ancient gateway, under which we had passed in 
the night. After breakfast I visited the Church, and espe- 
cially the Beauchamp Chapel, where the ancient lords of Warwick 
lie on their proud tombs, in sculptured mail, beside their dainty 
dames, in more delicate attire. This chapel is, of its kind, the 
finest in the kingdom ; the superb tomb of Charles the Bold and 
Mary of Burgundy, when I saw it at Bruges, reminded me of it, 


WARWICK CASTLE. 


179 


a**d seemed less imperial. I cannot now recall it in detail, as I 
wish I could, for the sake of accurate criticism ; but at the time 
I was greatly struck with the state and splendour of such beauty 
— -for ashes! Fulke Greville’s monument is also memorable, if 
only for the striking tribute it pays to private friendship ; for the 
inscription furnished by himself ekes out the fact of his being 
“ Councillor to King James,” by that of his claim to write himself 
— “ The friend of Sir Philip Sydney.” 

I went over Warwick Castle, of course, and surveyed the 
grounds from the porter’s lodge, where are shown the armour and 
the porridge-pot of great Guy, and fair Phselice’s slippers, to the 
garden-house, wherein is kept the gigantic vase from Tivoli. 
What eyes for natural beauty had those builders of old times ! 
The Avon seems just here to be made for Warwick Castle, and 
Warwick Castle seems made for it. On the whole, I have seen 
no residence in Europe, save Windsor Castle, that seemed to me 
more princely than this. ’Tis not the creation of vulgar opulence, 
or of an Aladdin-like fortune — but it seems the growth of ages, 
and the natural concentration of architectural beauty and strength. 
From its windows such a view of the landscape- — in the landscape 
such views of it ! And then its relics and antiquities ; its pictures 
and its portraits ; its bed-rooms, and halls, and drawing-rooms ; 
its boudoirs, and its bowers; its chapel, and its whole together — 
who can but wonder at them, and who would want them? 
Mine is not so vast an ambition — such “ an unbounded stomach.” 
On the whole I am so reasonable a man, that to gratify my 
utmost longings for a home — -this side “ the house not made with 
hands ” — I would take Guy’s Cliff, and leave Warwick Castle 
untroubled by any writ of ejectment from even a roving wish, or 
wild, ungoverned thought. 




CHAPTER XXII. 

Stratford — Shakspeare. 

Only nine miles to Stratford-upon-Avon ! With what a flush 
of delighted expectation I climbed the coach, and left the War- 
wick Arms, in the hope of beholding with my eyes, in less than 
two short hours, the home of Shakspeare, and that world-famous 
church to which he bequeathed his bones ! And yet there was 
something like a misgiving at the heart. My imagination had 
been familiar, for years, with a certain ideal of Stratford, that 
had grown into my whole structure of thought concerning 
Shakspeare and his times. It had been constructed from here a 
print, and there a traveller’s tale, and had taken life and beauty 
from detached anecdotes, and little inklings of historic light, that 
had come sweetly to me from my boyhood, in some inexplicable 
manner. In part the product of enthusiastic study, when college 
oil, that should have been burned in honour of Euclid, and Napier, 
and Newton, was stealthily sacrificed at the shrine of the great 
master of the human heart, I had possessed for years, a Stratford 
of my own ; a pet village of my soul, such as Shakspeare should 
have lived in : and now — in a few hours, all this was to be de- 
posed forever ; dull realities were to eclipse the brilliant picture 
of the fancy, and thenceforth I must know only the Stratford 
of fact. Would the realization pay me for the downfall of 
the vision ? Alas ! what is life but a continual balance between 
loss and gain ; what pleasure do we acquire, without the sacrifice 
of something almost as sweet ? How long the boy looks at his 
bright penny before he gives it for the toothsome sugar-plum ; 
and how often the bright penny comes back to him, as the sub- 
stantial wealth, of which the moment’s gratification has deprived 
him. 

As the coach began to draw near Stratford, I found myself 




RED HORSE INN. 


181 


greatly excited ; and every object began to assume a sort of con- 
scious connection with immortal genius. The very road, — but 
much more the trees, — and even more, those features of the land- 
scape which might be supposed unchanged by the lapse of centu- 
ries, seemed instinct with their past communion with a great 
creative mind. His spell was on them. He had once been 
familiar with these scenes. He had gathered many an image, 
many a thought, and, I doubt not, many a refreshing hope, from 
intercourse with their spring and summer beauties ; and they had 
been not less instructive to him, perhaps, in the season of the 
sere-leaf, or in that of the wintry wind. Yonder was Charle- 
cote — beyond the Avon : its park still stretching thro’ the vale, 
and hiding the old historic hall. But the thought of that juve- 
nile deer-stalking, gave speaking life to even the distant scene. 
There is some sensitive principle in our nature, to which such 
associations so powerfully appeal, that nothing is more real, for a 
time, than the communion we hold with departed greatness, 
through the medium of objects with which it was once conversant. 
This reality I never felt so strongly as now. At last we came in 
sight of that “ star-ypointing pyramid” — the spire of Stratford 
The gentle tumult of feelings with which it ruffled my inmost 
nature, for a moment, and the calm enjoyment that succeeded, 
were enough to pay me for crossing the Atlantic. 

I was duly set down at the Red Horse Inn, and ushered into 
the trim little parlour, and even into the elbow-chair, of which I 
had read, aforetime, in the pages of Geoffrey Crayon. Mine 
host readily recognizes an American, and never fails to produce, 
on such an occasion, the “sceptre” of the said Geoffrey, where- 
with he once poked the coals, in the smoking grate of said par- 
lour, and, for a tranquil moment, was “ monarch of all he sur- 
veyed.” Indeed, if Shakspeare reigns in Stratford, it must be 
allowed that the Red Horse is, nevertheless, the principality of 
Crayon, and that it is rapidly rising into a formidable rivalship 
of New Place, and the Guildhall, on the strength of Crayon’s 
reputation, to say nothing of the landlord’s ale. In short, no 
visitor to Stratford has ever left there such a lasting impression 
of his footsteps, as our own delightful Irving : and it was pleas- 
ant, indeed, thus, at the vei y threshold of my visit, to find, even 
in the broad glare of Shakspeare’ s glory, the star of our country- 
man revolving steadily in its own peculiar orbit, and shining as 
no mean satellite of that great central sun of Anglo-Saxon 
literature. 


182 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


I should be a bold man, indeed, to attempt to add anything to 
Irving’s description of Stratford-upon-Avon. I have only the 
adventures of my day to tell of, and they were few and simple. 
I followed in the beaten track to the old tumble-down cottage, 
which is called the birth-place of Shakspeare, and which was 
doubtless the scene of his infancy. I recognized at once, the 
original of many a well-thumbed print, and of many a descrip- 
tive page. Timber from the forest of Arden ; clay from the bed 
of the Avon ; sticks and mud at best compose the nest in which 
the Mighty Mother brought the immortal Swan to light. It was 
once a better nest than now. A butcher has degraded it to serve 
as shambles, and it has yet the appearance of a stall for meat, 
although it is no longer used, except as a relic, the show-woman 
being its only tenant. Here, in spite of its transmutations, you 
cannot but fancy the elder Shakspeare, “with spectacles on 
nose,” sitting in the spacious chimney, and teaching little Will 
his alphabet, or telling him, beside the winter’s fire, of the 
“ mysteries ” he had seen played, near by, at Coventry, when he 
was a boy. Through the door, you seem yet to see the marvel- 
lous urchin, with his satchel, creeping unwillingly to school : or, 
back he comes, with shining face, to tell that the Queen’s players 
have just arrived from London, to play “Troy-town,” at the 
Guildhall ! Here, at all events, day after day went over that 
mysterious young head, filling it with impressions, not one of 
which ever seems to have escaped it, and preparing its tenant 
genius to be the great bridge between old and modern England, 
by means of which, feeling, as well as fact, runs on continuously, 
in the line of English History, and gives it a unity and a vitality 
which the annals of other nations lack. Oh, strange, immortal, 
universal Will ! How supernatural the interest that hangs about 
thine every step, from the cradle to the grave. 

You ascend a few creaking stairs, and you are in the very 
room where the first of his Seven Ages was, no doubt, duly sig- 
nalized by himself, “ mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.” 
How many lives have been the mere pendants of the life that 
here flickered in its first lighting, and which a puff of air might 
have put out — -the world none the sadder for its loss ! Yet now, 
how supreme the dominion of that one soul, these scribbled walls 
attest ; where vulgar enthusiasm is not more legible, than that of 
the worldly great, of foreign scholars and sovereign princes, and 
of intellectual autocrats scarce less imperial than Shakspeare 
himself. How powerful the inspiration of the genius loci , is best 


SHAKSPEARE. 


183 


proved by the fact that among the scribblings one reads the auto- 
graph of Walter Scott. Verily, there is no fame like Shaks- 
peare’s ! Subduing, as he does, the instincts of all classes alike, 
and entering as he does, into the sympathies of all nations, he 
must be regarded less as a man of genius, than as a noble instru- 
ment of God, for subordinating human passions and affections to 
some superior purpose of His own, perhaps not yet conceived. 
The rise of a Christian literature, and that the purest which the 
world has ever possessed, is dated from the age of which he was 
the bright peculiar star ; and the whole Anglo-Saxon race must 
ever recognize in him the original master of many of its forms 
of thought, a rich contributor to its idiom and language, and the 
constructor of some of its strongest sentiments of civilization, of 
morals, and of religion. 

The site of the New Place is occupied by a solid mansion, 
which, devoid of interest in itself, commands a moment’s atten- 
tion, as occupying the spot on which Shakspeare’s prosperous 
days were passed, and which was emphatically his home. All 
that remains of him, in this place, and its immediate neighbour- 
hood, is nevertheless soon seen and dismissed, as nothing but the 
enthusiasm of an idolator would detect anything specially attrac- 
tive in a statue set up by Garrick at the Town Hall, and a few 
other memorials, too minute, or too modern, to deserve much delay 
in their inspection. I reserved my raptures for the walk to Shot- 
tery. Striking into the fields, I pleased myself with the convic- 
tion that air and earth are still very much the same in them, 
as when the boy Shakspeare played truant, and sported among 
their sweets. The birds and the flowers are still as gay as when 
he preferred to learn their lessons, rather than the schoolmaster’s ; 
and when I turned into a shady lane, all green and white with 
hawthorn, or plucked the peas’ blossom in the upland, or the 
buttercup and daisy in the meadow, I felt sure that his foot had 
fallen where they grew, and that they had given him pleasure, 
and taught him morals, which the world has willingly taken at 
second-hand, and will never “willingly let die.” Yes, the very 
labouring oxen, and the pasturing cows, seemed to me of a supe- 
rior breed. Short-horn, or Devonshire, or whatever they may 
be to the farmer, they were, in my esteem, not less than Shaks- 
perean beef fed on the grass of Stratford, and feeding my 
imagination with images of the animated nature of the same 
scenery, as it was three hundred years ago. I came to several 
pretty farm cottages, with shrubbery in their little door-yards, 


184 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


and at one of these I knocked* thinking it must be Anne Hatha- 
way’s ; but the damsel who opened the door seemed not much 
flattered by the inquiry, for Anne, though she was Shakspeare’s 
wife, was not an honest woman, by the parish register, and has 
little honour in her own village. However, the damsel pointed 
out my way, with milk-maid courtesy, and away I went with 
traveller-like apologies. Here, then, at last, was the scene of 
Will’s discreditable courtship ; and here, if they deceived me not, 
descendants of the Hathaways live still. The house is in two 
parts, like nave and chancel in ecclesiastical architecture ; tim- 
bered and plastered, like the birth-place aforesaid, and thatched 
in the picturesque style so dear to Crayon artists and sketchers ; 
its little windows peeping out of the straw, like sharp eyes under 
the shaggy brows of an old pensioner, sunning himself in front of 
an ale-house. I am glad to say that roses, and other flowers, 
were duly set about the cottage, as one which I plucked, and 
brought away, bears witness. They showed me some old Hatha- 
way furniture, and among others an enormous bedstead of Eliza- 
bethan date, on which, they would have me believe, that many 
of the poet’s dreams had visited him. There was also an ancient 
oaken chair : and finally, some bed and table linen was taken out 
of an old chest. It was evidently homespun, and they believed 
it to be Anne’s work, as well as property. With this view of the 
matter, however, the initials E. H. did not entirely agree, and al- 
though I was inclined to yield this objection at the moment, when 
credulity was allowable, I do not now flatter myself that I have 
seen the bedstead or the bed-clothes of Shakspeare. It is some- 
thing better that I have seen the Church in which he was christ- 
ened, and where he now lies, under the chancel ; and where he 
was taught to pray ; and where he often knelt, one would fain 
believe, in true contrition ; and where he learned, from some 
lowly parson, unknown to fame, many of those sublime and gos- 
pel verities, which have given, even to his poorer themes, their 
savor of immortality. 

The avenue of limes which leads to the church-porch, is rather 
stiff than otherwise. The “ way to Parish Church” was proba- 
bly unpaved, and perhaps unshaded, when Will tottered over it, 
to be catechised ; or when, in maturer years, he sought the House 
of God with reverence, among the multitude that kept holy 
day. The Church itself is of Anglo-Norman date, and was 
originally such in its architecture, but has frequently been altered 
and repaired, at various periods. It is cruciform, and would bo 


THE EPITAPH. 


185 


not unworthy of a visit for its own sake. The churchyard is full 
of graves, and the Avon flows under its walls. I sat there, for 
nearly an hour, quite alone, trying to grasp the full idea of the 
spot. A lubberly scow came paddling along on the turbid river ; 
and the rooks started up, and then lighted upon the old gray 
tower ; and some sheep came nibbling among the graves ; and 
finally, two or three children ran about me, and kept me com- 
pany, for awhile ; but oh ! how unconscious seemed all these of 
the great reality of the place, and how still and solemnly the 
poet slumbered on, in his sepulchre, unconscious of this prosy 
nineteenth century, which thus wags on without him. I took 
out my tablets in a sort of reverie ; wrote down the date, and 
scribbled on at random, as follows : 4 Here, in the churchyard of 
Stratford, I am sitting on the stone-wall, which defends it from 
the Avon, and at the foot of which, its fringe of flags grows rank, 
amid the slime. The sun, through the half-misty atmosphere, is 
falling tenderly on the limes ; birds are singing ; a rook cawing ; 
nobody is near, but the breeze whispers, socially, through the elms 
overhead. How still the old spire points up to heaven ! How 
dearly the grass clings to the tower and belfry, growing there in 
every 44 coigne of vantage !” And this quiet old chancel, too ! 
Within these walls was Shakspeare made a member of Christ, 
and here he waits the Judgment. Oh, Will ! how much for thee 
imports the Scripture, 44 by ihy words thou slialt be justified, and 
by thy words thou shalt be condemned !” ’ 

The old legendary sexton of Irving’s visit has passed away, 
and another reigns in his stead. Availing myself of his keys, I 
excused him from any further effort of his tongue, and survey- 
ed the solemn interior in peace. Here, too, the hand of restora- 
tion has been freshly at work, and has set the holy house in 
order. The Church which enfolds the tomb of Shakspeare is 
dedicated to the Holy Trinity — the God who made him, and 
whom he adored. The meagre god of unbelief would never have 
filled such a soul as his, or moved him to kneel down ; but how 
often that overwhelming Mystery of Faith must have thrilled 
him here, as he repeated the creed, or chanted the Te Deum ! At 
last I stood before the famous bust, and looked upon that sub- 
lime forehead, and those composed features, and said to it silently 
those brotherly lines of Milton, which the sight brings naturally 
to mind. Then I read the inscription, and spelled out, letter by 
letter, the words of that imprecatory verse, in which Shakspeare’? 
self is as legible as anything else. 44 Good friend, for Jesu’s 


186 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


sake,” etc. — Amen, was my response. It was a moment to re- 
member, but not to describe. 

I next tried to satisfy myself as to the sense of Mistriss HalVs 
epitaph, which is ambiguous ; and on which the inspection of the 
original throws little additional light. It tells us first, that she 
was “ witty above her sexe,” and second , that she was “ wise to 
salvation,” and then adds : 

“ Something of Shakspeare was in that — but this 
Wholly of him, with whom she’s now in blisse.” 

Now, of course, this him must mean her Saviour, with whom 
she is in Paradise ; yet, it may mean, for all that, her father 
Shakspeare ; and the question is, was not the ambiguity a quaint 
conceit, and intended to be a doublet ? If so, as it has often 
struck me, whatever we may think of its taste, it is an important 
testimony to the maturer character of the poet ; since its second- 
ary meaning would be, to give it in paraphrase — that her wit had 
something in it of Shakspeare, but that her piety was wholly 
learned of her father, with whom she now reaps its reward. Now 
if we exclude this idea, it would almost seem to force us into the 
sad reverse ; for certainly, as it is first read, it seems to imply 
that she was not indebted to her father for any of hdl- religion, 
though she was for her wit. Of course, it may be answered, that 
wisdom unto salvation is so exclusively from Christ, as its meritori- 
ous cause, that nothing else is to be taken into account, as its in- 
strument i but is this the sole idea of the verse? Very likely; 
and yet after all, I wonder that its ambiguous character has never 
attracted the attention of the many who have raked and scraped 
the very dust of Stratford for something rich and strange. Cer- 
tain it is, that, like many readings of Shakspeare himself, it wants 
but a change of emphasis, from word to word, to give two or 
three different senses, any one of which is tolerable, although it 
is an intolerably bad epitaph, after all. 

I believe the droppings of this Church of Stratford bedew the 
works of Shakspeare, from the first sonnet to the last play, and 
that here he was schooled to that strict law of his dramas, which 
runs through all, and by which he always “ shows virtue her own 
feature, and scorn her own image,” instead of fitting the mask 
of propriety upon the front of shame. More than all, it was 
here that he learned that reverence for the name of Jesus, with 
■which be so often embalms his pages, and which so often makes 
them melodious to a believer’s ear and heart. How much, too, 


THE POET’S PIETY. 


187 


the first and second lesson out of “the Bishop’s Bible” — how 
much the Epistle and Gospel, and the Psalter, taught him, not 
only of sonorous English, but of Christian doctrine and morals ! 
I am sure these influences may be detected in his works ; and as 
I looked at the very spot where his young idea was taught to 
shoot toward heaven, I felt that this was the sublimest associa- 
tion of the place. Here once (my fancy suggested) he may have 
heard in the lesson for the day — suffer children to come unto Me , 
and then, a few verses afterwards, he must have been struck with 
the contrast, when the parson read on — it is easier for a camell to 
go thorow a nedle’s eye , etc. He was now a prosperous man, and 
had just purchased New-Place, and obtained a grant of Arms. 
His conscience therefore pricked him with the question — Was he 
one of the rich men for whom admission into heaven was to be 
so hard? The parson mounted the pulpit, and quoted much 
learned stuff out of Sir J ohn Maundeville, to explain the oriental- 
ism of the lesson : and among other things, he threw out the idea 
that the postern gate of an Eastern city was so small, that it was 
impossible for a beast of burthen to pass through it, and was 
usually called “ the needle’s eye,” and hence the force of the com- 
parison. All this, Shakspeare, who was thinking his own thoughts, 
heard only incoherently, and he got a somewhat confused ideavof 
the postern and needle; but being, just then, at work on his Richard 
the Second, he goes home, and puts his Sunday reverie into the 
mouth of his hero, thus : — 

“ My thoughts of things divine are intermixed 
With scruples, and do set the word itself 
Against the word, 

As thus — Come little ones ; and then, again, 

It is as hard, to come, as for a camel 
To thread the postern of a needle's eye." 

Such at least is the story, which this passage suggests to me as, 
very possibly, the way in which it came to him. I often trace to 
a similar source, that is, to the open Scriptures, and the vernacu- 
lar services of the Church of England, the innumerable Siloan 
streams which freshen and even sanctify his verse. The great 
themes of redemption may be found richly illustrated in many 
passages ; and I think I could select from his works enough of 
sacred poetry to fill a little volume, and one fit to be kept as a 
companion to the Prayer-Book and the Christian Year. I can- 
not credit the scandal that Shakspeare died of a debauch, nor do 
I believe he was less than an ordinary Christian. While the 


188 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


secrets of his heart are with his God, we may at least, in Chris- 
tian charity, believe that the friend of publicans and sinners may 
have seen in him a practical dependence upon that Atonement 
which, by the mouth of Portia, he has preached so well : — 

— “ Therefore, Jew, 

Though justice be thy plea, consider this, 

That in the course of justice none of us 
Should see salvation ; we do pray for mercy.” 

As I departed, I plucked a branch of ivy from the Church 
wall, near the spot where his dust awaits the resurrection. It 
was brought home with me to America — the land in which he 
has more readers than anywhere else in the whole world. How 
little he foresaw this, when in compliment to James the First, he 
recorded (if the passage be his own) the prediction that James 
should “ make new nations adding — what proves rather true 
of himself — 

“ Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine, 

His honour, and the greatness of his name 
Shall be !” 

A threatening rain prevented my walking to Charlecote, but I 
went away contented. I was inclined to indulge a little in 
Jacques’ vein, and the melancholy clouds began to favour us 
with congenial tears, as — reduced to sober prose — I made my 
way in the storm, on the top of a stage-coach, through what was 
once the Forest of Arden. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


Haddon Hall — Chatswortk — Shrewsbury — Chester . 

After renewing my acquaintance with the hospitable fri mds 
at B , with whom I had passed my Easter, I made an ex- 

cursion into Derbyshire, with an episodical trip to Nottingham. 
My chief attraction to this latter place was that of an invitation 

from sundry relatives of my B friends to visit them, though 

the town is certainly well worthy of being visited for itself. For 
the sake of poor Kirke- White, one would wish to hunt up his 
lowly birth-place, and some would say that Newstead Abbey 
deserves a traveller’s homage. In fact, the Park and Abbey are 
the great charm of the neighbourhood, to most visitors ; but I must 
own that I could not bring myself to make a pilgrimage to the 
scene of those orgies for which it is chiefly distinguished. On 
making some such remark to a worthy ex-magistrate of the borough, 
I was struck with the downright English common sense of his 
reply, — “You are quite right” — said he — “no one thinks much 
of Lord Byron, in these parts, where he was known ; he cheated 
the tradesmen with whom he had dealings, and made himself so 
odious, that when his remains were brought through Nottingham, 
to be buried, we could not make up our minds to pay him any ho- 
nours !” So much for romance and misanthropy ! Genius, with- 
out honour and morality, is despicable indeed : and one even doubts 
the sentimental refinement of the man, of whom an intimate 
friend and companion could say, with anything like epigramma- 
tic truthfulness, that “he cried for the press, and wiped his eyes 
with the public.” 

A visit to the castle, and its caves, to which my reverend 

friend from B conducted me, well repaid us for our walk to 

the eminence on which it stands in ruins. It belonged to the 


190 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


late Duke of Newcastle, and was burned, as I remember very 
well, during the Reform riots, by an infuriate mob : but it is sup- 
posed, that the stiff old aristocrat whom they meant to injure, 
was very well pleased with the outrage. He did not inhabit it ; 
he was well reimbursed for his loss ; and was relieved from the 
tax of keeping up an unnecessary residence. The caves which 
undermine the castle, are famous for their historical connection 
with the story of the “ She-wolf of France :” for through them 
was made the entrance into the fortress, which resulted in the 
arrest of Isabella and her paramour. They still point out a cer- 
tain cave, as Mortimer’s; but the whole rock is riddled by 
fissures and loop-holes, and appears to be very soft and friable. 
From the summit one gets a beautiful view of Clifton-grove and 
the Yale of Trent; and on another side of Bel voir Castle, (pro- 
nounced Beaver ,) the seat of the Duke of Rutland. The “ Field 
of the Standard” is near the castle, and I surveyed, with deep 
feeling, the spot where King Charles set up his ensign, to be torn 
down by the storm the same night, and to be even more unfor- 
tunate, in the issue, than the omen seemed to require. After a 
visit to a few of the churches and public buildings, and a single 
night under one of its roofs, I was off to Derbyshire. 

With Derby itself I was not long detained, though I cannot 
but remember, with pleasure, the acquaintance I formed there 
with several veiy agreeable persons. Perhaps the most interest- 
ing thing about Derby is the historical reminiscence, that here the 
progress of the Stuart standard was finally, and forever arrested. 
It is surprising that “Royal Charlie” ever succeeded in pushing 
his invasion to this point: but thus much he effected, in the fatal 
’45, and the spot where he was lodged, in Derby, is still shown 
by the townsfolk, with interest, if not enthusiasm. 

Even railway glimpses of Derbyshire give one many pleasura- 
ble emotions, abounding as it does in beautiful valleys and streams, 
and in abrupt rocky hills — -jocosely described by Walton, as 
frightful and savage, to such a degree that he affects surprise at 
the sight of a church among them, and asks whether there be 
verily any Christians in such a country. When, at last, I found 
myself strolling along the Wye, and conversing with an angler, 
in the green mead, just within sight of the battlements of Haddon 
Hall, all the delicious nature and good humour of old Izaak came 
upon me, and observing that nothing near me seemed to be of 
modern fashion, I was almost transported back two centuries, 
and fancied myself for a moment at his side, learning, like Venatcn 


OLD IZAAK. 


191 


to love angling, and so to weather the evil days of Cromwell — 
studying to be quiet in that vocation, and to mind my own busi- 
ness, as the apostle doth enjoin. It had been my purpose to 
visit Dove-dale, in honour of Walton, but this I found im- 
practicable, and the nearest I could come to it was now realized. 
Blessings on his worthy memory ! for though I be not an accepted 
brother of the angle, having never enjoyed great luck when I 
have gone a fishing, yet do I allow the art all honour, and do 
consider it the becoming recreation for a Churchman ; admitting 
its connection with the catechism, and saying Amen to divers 
other postulates of Walton, of like grave and self-evident char- 
acter. 

I must own that I found Haddon Hall of considerably less 
dimensions than I had foreshadowed to my fancy. I had sup- 
posed its smallest chamber one of those gigantic apartments, in 
which candles and fire-light must strive in vain to throw their 
illumination from the chimney-piece to the opposite wainscot; 
or in which a nocturnal guest might find the freest exercise of 
imagination, in looking after noises, towards the dark distance, 
from the lamp at his bedside, of the waving hangings and creak- 
ing doors. It is not altogether such a house as that ; and yet if 
there be a better site for the residence of a ghost, or a troop of 
them, I have never seen it. Your nervous man should never try 
to lodge there. It is stripped of nearly all its furniture, save 
only such as is requisite to give full effect to midnight sounds 
and mysterious moanings. Its history is lost in that of the dim 
and traditionary ages of the Plantagenets ; the windows of its 
lonely chapel bear the date 1427 ; and the last touches of the 
builder were given to it at least three hundred years ago. There 
it stands — a relic of the domestic architecture of feudal England. 
Here are turreted and embattled gate-ways, and quadrangular 
courts, enclosed as if to stand a siege. The kitchen is designed 
for the largest hospitality; spits, dressers and chopping block, 
all speaking of the bountiful housekeeping of the olden time — to 
say nothing of the vast chimneys, which seem made to roar with 
Christmas fires perpetually. You ascend a great stair-case, on 
which it seems almost profane to set a modern foot, so entirely 
does it bespeak its ancient right to be trodden by the doughty 
and dainty steps of lords and dames, in the attire of by-gone 
centuries. You enter a room hung with antique tapestry, now 
ready to drop into tatters. You push-to the old squeaking doors, 
and drop these hangings, and it no longer appears how you got 


192 


IMPRESSIONS Or ENGLAND. 


in, or bow you may get out. You understand at once the allu- 
sions of many an old play, and almost expect to find some thievish 
figure lurking behind the arras. Hangings they truly are, for 
hooks are built into the wall, and to these the arras are attached. 
But the “Long Gallery” is the place in which a ghost would 
naturally air himself. It is wainscoated and floored with oak, 
and ornamented with various carved devices and emblems, such 
as the rose, and the thistle, and the boar’s head ; and then it has 
deep recessed window-seats and oriels ; and some of them look 
out on the sunny terraces of the garden, and suggest vague ideas 
of romance, and create phantom ladies of olden time, to fill up 
the scene, and rich illustrative stories to make them interesting. 
No doubt real hearts have throbbed here with high and tender 
emotions : and events which we know only as the dry details of 
history, have filled these silent chambers with notes of joy or 
sorrow, with the wail of the widow or the forlorn maiden, or 
with the voice of the bridegroom and the bride. The stately 
Elizabeth is said to have once figured in this gallery, at a ball. 

The architecture of the great hall is severely antique, and 
suggests a rude and uncivil age, in spite of its air of dignity and 
hospitality. The men who dined here evidently wore swords, 
and the loving-cup and health-drinking were no mere ceremonies ; 
the party who drank, as he lifted his arm, looking narrowly at 
the friend who stood up to guard him. A hand-cuff which is 
fastened to the wood-work seems to hint that guests were some- 
times troublesome after taking plenty of sack. I could think of 
nothing but Twelfth-night revels in this curious old place, adorned 
as it is with the antlers of stags that were hunted long ago, and 
whose venison once smoked on the board. 

The terraced gardens, with their shades, and balusters, and 
steps, and walks, and portals, are in keeping with all the rest, 
and the tale of the Lady Dorothea Yernon, and of her mysterious 
elopement, is enough to fill them with the charm of romance. 
From one of the towers you look down upon the whole range of 
roofs and courts, and then gaze far away over a beautiful view 
of the vale of Haddon. Before you depart you are shown some 
ancient utensils belonging to the place, such as jack-boots, and 
match-locks, and doublets. These are kept in the apartment of 
my reverend brother, the domestic chaplain, whoever he may 
have been ; but whether he had any use for such things I cannot 
bear testimony. The adjoining chapel in which he officiated is 
very small, and quite plain. The ancient piscina, beside the 


AN OLD CHArEL. 


193 


altov . *ILs its simple story of the rites which, according to the 
xnedi<cral liturgy of England, hallowed it of yore. It conjured 
up before my fancy the midnight mass of Christmas, as described 
by Scott — 

“ That night alone, of all the year, 

Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear.” 

It was, at any rate, no Tridentine Eucharist, though it was a 
mutilated one ; and sad as were the scenes of debauchery with 
which those solemnities are associated, I could not but trust that, 
even here, Christ crucified had been truly worshipped, of old, on 
the solemn feast of his Nativity, and on many other occasions of 
Christian joy or penitence. Who would not cling to such com- 
munion with ancient piety? And yet this natural sympathy, 
when morbidly developed, has done more than all things else 
together, to bewitch the imaginative with Romanism, and to make 
them slavish captives to a Church which has retained nothing 
mediaeval except that newfangled creed, to which the departed 
spirit of Mediaevalism has bequeathed none of its poetry, and 
which only exists as the inanimate slough of its superstition. 

Compared with Haddon Hall, the superb modem residence of 
Chatsworth struck me as tame and spiritless. The mansion has 
indeed a pleasant seat : and the deer, bounding over the velvet 
turf of its park, or the peacock, strutting amid its balusters and 
fountains, give it indeed a lordly look of opulent show, without 
much ease. Yet what is it, at best, but the dull round of “ my 
lord’s apartments,” without one association beyond that of my 
lord’s great wealth and luxury ? I should be ashamed to confess, 
indeed, that I was not pleased with the pictures, and more than 
pleased with the exquisite carvings and magnificent sculpture, 
viewed merely as works of art ; but I was fatigued with the vast 
worldliness of such a house, and felt that it would better have 
suited a Hadrian, than it does a Christian nobleman of England. 
Such a residence as Warwick Castle comes to its possessor histo- 
rically, and a nobleman may well keep it up ; but Chatsworth 
seems built for display, and must be altogether too much for 
comfort. I am glad if its possessor enjoys it — but I should rather 
dwell in the humblest parsonage in England. Nature itself, as 
seen from the windows of Chatsworth, has a combed and dressy 
look. Its vast conservatory — the original of the Crystal Palace — 
is well worth a visit, and its gardens are curious enough, but 
the water-works are elaborately frivolous. I was promised a 
tine artificial cataract — but lo ! in the side of a beautiful hill 3 

9 


194 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


saw a stone stair-case, and by-and-by the water came sluggishly 
down stairs, like a little girl, in white dress, afraid to let go of the 
hand rail, as she leaps timidly from step to step. “ Good morn- 
ing, Miss Cataract,” said I, “ that will do !” 

The same clipped and artificial beauty belongs to the neigh- 
bouring village of Edensor, and the whole seems the more un- 
real as contrasting violently with the natural features of this 
wild and ruggedly beautiful country. I am glad to have seen 
Chatsworth, but I should not care to see it again, though the 
desolate Haddon Hall never recurs in my memory, without 
awakening fresh longings to be once more in Derbyshire, and to 
saunter again along its rushing Wye. 

With my visit to Matlock Bath, I was much better satisfied. 
Here indeed is Derbyshire, in spite of spruce inns and fashionable 
boarding-houses. I scampered over the hills, (having first climbed 
them with more pleasure than fatigue,) and went from view to 
view with increasing transports. This region is all cliff and ravine, 
and precipice and chasm ; yet in every direction the eye is re- 
freshed and delighted, and the mind takes pleasure alike in think- 
ing that it is scarcely English scenery, and that it is yet strikingly 
unlike anything but England after all! These sharp outlines, 
and bold walls of rock, for example, you say are somewhat Swiss ; 
but as you look over them, towards the horizon, you see that 
their foliage and their verdure are English, absolutely ; and then, 
looking down the chasm, at your feet, you see a trim and neat 
little village, and houses set in gardens, and peeping out from 
shrubbery, and especially a church, altogether such as no one 
ever sees save in England only! I entered the Speedwell mine, 
and went through the usual experiments with lights amid the 
spar, but, on the whole, the subterranean part of Matlock was 
what I liked least about it. I felt lonely, however, in enjoying 
my ramble about so beautiful a place, and the company of certain 
loved ones in America was longed for over and over again to 
make it all that I desired. From this delightful place I made 
my way to Shrewsbury. 

Beautiful is Shrewsbury, without and within ! Its spires and 
its towers give you far-off promise of a place worthy of the 
traveller’s halt, and when you enter its old-fashioned streets, you 
are not disappointed. I found the market-place, with its hall and 
surrounding mansions, quite as unmodernized as those of towns 
in the north of France. The projecting gable of many an old 
timbered house confronts you as you go hither and thither 


A SEDAN CHAIR. 


195 


through the borough, and very often the woodwork of such 
houses is fancifully arranged and ornamented, in a manner highly 
effective and picturesque. Their modern tenants paint the tim- 
bers with grave, but appropriate colours, and whitewash the 
plastered walls which intervene, thus bringing out the full design 
of the ancient architect in a neat and striking manner. I saw, 
in one of the streets, a chair carried by bearers, precisely as in 
Hogarth’s prints, and which seemed to have been in use ever 
since Hogarth’s day. Its occupant was a portly female, who 
might have graced the Court of Queen Anne, so far as her 
appearance was concerned, and what with such an apparition, in 
a place altogether so antique, I found myself for a moment quite 
in doubt whether the nineteenth century were actually in exist- 
ence, with its many inventions. 

I went through the beautiful and finely-wooded field called the 
Quarry , and the walk called St. Charts, and crossed one of the 
bridges over the Severn to the Abbey Church. Here I found 
some interesting monuments and architectural curiosities ; and the 
neighbourhood seemed to abound in similar relics of what must 
once have been a very large conventual establishment. At St. 
Mary’s, there was a J esse-window and some tombs, which afford- 
ed me a gratifying occupation for awhile ; then the ruins of an old 
castle, such as they are, attracted me ; and, though last, not least, 
the fragments of a very ancient church, being merely its chancel, 
dedicated to St. Chad. The school in which Sir Philip Sydney 
was reared, and where Fulke Grevil became his friend, still 
swarms with the ingenuous youth of England, and I encountered 
them at every turn, in the highways and by-ways of the town. 
What an element of education it must be of itself for a lad to be 
sent to a school that has such a history ! Such thoughts made 
me faint of heart for a moment, when I felt the irreparable 
poverty of my own country in historical associations. The in- 
estimable dowry of a glorious antiquity can never mingle its 
ennobling qualities with our national character. We may, and 
we do, enjoy immense compensations ; but what reflective Ameri- 
can does not give way at times to a melancholy sense that he has 
indeed “ no past at his back,” and that God has isolated him in- 
voluntarily, by this great fact, from the fellowship of nations! 
“ But here comes a Shrewsbury boy,” said I, amid such thoughts, 
“ what cares he for Sydney, more than an ordinary American lad 
at school ?” Sure enough ! WTiy then be sentimental ? It is, after 
all, only a certain class of minds, that receives powerful impres- 


198 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND 


sions from anything past or fature : and I believe an American 
youth can enjoy such impressions effectively, by means of a 
healthful imagination, while an English youth may often find it 
hard to divest the realities with which he is daily conversant, of 
the degrading effects of familiarity. Such is my calmer judg- 
ment. 

I tasted the famous “Shrewsbury cakes” at the station-house, 
and having spent several hours “ by Shrewsbury clock,” in this 
pleasing survey of the old borough, I left it with regret, pur- 
posing to return, and to make excursions from it to a neighbour- 
ing seat to which I had been kindly invited, and also to Hodnet, 
which I greatly desired to see, in honour of the gentle and be- 
loved Heber. In these plans, however, I was disappointed. As 
you leave Shrewsbury for the north, you gain a most agreeable 
view of the town, which stands on a fair peninsula in the bright 
embrace of the Severn. It is a place full of poetry. On one 
side are the Welsh Mountains ; on the other, amid Salopian fields, 
you descry the columnar monument of Lord Hill ; but the tall 
spires and the Abbey Tower tell more eloquently of Hotspur. 

At Chirk station a Welsh family entered the train, gabbling 
their consonants most unintelligibly ; but I soon discovered from 
their adieus, and their tears and sighs, that they were emigrants 
going to Liverpool to ship for America. This stirred up a warm 
home-feeling : I found that one of them could talk English, and 
I was not long in finding a way to their hearts. They were going 
to Wisconsin, and were very willing to be advised on ordinary 
matters. I tried, also, to impress them with my own ideas of the 
privileges they might enjoy under the care of the Nashotah Mis- 
sionaries; but I fear they were dissenters, as the Welsh peasantry 
too often are, and that my endeavours to add to the burthens of 
my esteemed brethren of that diocese, were quite unavailing. I 
slept that night at Chester. 

But I despair of describing Chester. Elsewhere in England 
you meet with ancient houses and picturesque streetgj but Ches- 
ter is all antiquity. What you would go miles to see, when in 
search of the quaintly beautiful, is here multiplied before you in 
almost every house. In the first place it is a walled town. I 
made the circuit of the walls in the morning, with constant emo- 
tions of astonishment ; for they are in good repair, and seem even 
yet to have their use, whereas, I had imagined them to be mere 
relics of the past. I came to the Tower upon the wall, from the 
summit of which Charles the First beheld the total rout of his 


TOWER OF CHARLES I. 


197 


array. It is a mere watch-tower ; but as the memorial of a great 
event, it would be hard to imagine a monument more striking. 
There is much more to interest the passenger as he goes on, look- 
ing now into houses built into the wall like swallows’ nests, and 
now into church-yards, and now into a race-course, and again into 
a river : but a thoughtful tourist, and especially one from America, 
will find it hard to think of anything but that Tower, and the 
mighty issues which were once deciding before it, in view of an 
august and awfully interested spectator. Poor King! as he 
descended from it, what must have been his emotions ? 

The streets of Chester are said still to preserve the outlines of 
the Roman camp, from which the town derives its name. They 
are a great curiosity in themselves, and seem to have been cut 
down into the rock, while the houses were reared on the banks, 
above the level thus obtained. And such houses ! Gable after 
gable, timbered, pargetted, enriched with carving, and jutting 
over the street — each one “ a picture for painters to study !” 
And where are the trottoirs , or side-walks ? Lo ! the houses all 
run down to the carriage-way ; but what should be their front 
rooms, above the basement floor, are mere verandahs, through the 
whole line of which freely walks the public, always under cover, 
and always at home! These “rows” (even more than the walls) 
are the feature of Chester which most strikes the stranger ; espe- 
cially as the opposite houses, which he beholds in passing 
through them, are full of curious objects for any one whose eye 
delights in the antique. On one, for example, are rich emble- 
matic or fanciful decorations and carvings ; on another, a scene 
from Scripture history is cut in uncouth style ; while another 
bears the legend : God’s providence is mine inheritance , 1652. A 
good inheritance always, but especially in Cromwell’s time. The 
guide-book says, that in the great plague of the year thus desig- 
nated, this house was the only one which the destroying angel did 
not visit. Hence the pious inscription. 

But there is no doing justice to old Chester, on a tourist’s page. 
Its cathedral is a poor one, and so crumbling are its walls and 
buttresses, that every shower washes down a plentiful soil, from 
the decomposing stone. I lingered without weariness, however, 
in its aisles and cloisters, and must say that its service was sung 
delightfully, although the singers were few, and the clergy fewer 
still. The same disgraceful poverty and lifelessness, which I had 
remarked elsewhere, characterized the visible force of the estab- 
lishment ; and I could not but say to myself, if this feeble per- 


198 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


formance is, nevertheless, so edifying and effective, what might 
not be the blessed result of a vitalized cathedral body, serving 
God night and day in His Temple, as God should be always 
served, in this rich and ancient Church of an empire which pro- 
fesses to be Christian, and which God has so unspeakably exalted 
among the nations of the earth. 

The other ecclesiastical objects of the town were duly visited, 
and then I took a boat on the Dee, and was rowed toward Eaton 
Hall, which I finally reached on foot, after a walk through the 
surrounding park. This was, till very lately, regarded as the 
finest possible specimen of modern Gothic, in the domestic line, 
and a vast amount of Cockney admiration has been wasted on it. 
I found it undergoing repairs, which must greatly improve it ; but, 
after all, it is a meagre thing, when one has seen the Gothic of the 
cathedrals, or of such a castle as Kenilworth. I did not see 
much of the interior, as visitors were necessarily excluded, in 
favour of the workmen ; and so after visiting the conservatories, 
and various outlying dependencies of this great house, I left it, 
not greatly overwhelmed with what I had seen. I was better 
pleased with my return voyage, on the Dee, and with the river- 
view of Chester. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


A Trip into Wales . 

From the walls of Chester, one has a very tempting prospect 
before him in the mountains of Wales. To Wales I now took my 
way, and first of all alighted at Holywell station, to visit the 
wondrous shrine and fountain of St. Winifred. A Welsh lady 
had advised me, by all means, to pay this homage to her native 
place, and had sportively prepared me to see something very 
strange, indeed, in the legendary well of its tutelar. The story 
which she told me was this, in short : that the well had sprung 
from the earth, in the olden time, just where the head of the 
Holy Winifred, fair and lovely as it was, touched the earth, 
when her barbarous lover, Caradoc, smote it off, to revenge his 
disappointed passion. Be this as it may, I found, in Holywell, a 
very remarkable pool and fountain, by which lay a great number 
of impotent folk, as formerly they did at Bethesda, in Jewry, 
waiting for the moving of the waters. But no — these waters 
always move. The fountain gushes up with violence, and runs 
with a full tide. Whether it cures or not, I cannot say. It Is 
supposed to do so ; and is used for healing purposes by hundreds. 
The crutches of many of those who have been healed, are rever- 
ently hung up over the well ; and several inscriptions have been 
cut, deep in the stone walls and pillars of the Church which 
rises above it, expressive of gratitude for cure. Here James the 
Second came to worship, in his dotage, in 1686. The Irish 
Romanists, and modern converts, consider it a sort of duty to 
uphold the miraculous reputation of the well, and are very zealous 
in such tributes to the legend and the saint. One may certainly 
believe that it is a healing spring, without swallowing the whole 
story about St. Winifred ; and for one, I am far from unwilling 


200 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


to see such springs resorted to, and used, in a religious spirit, as 
the gift of God. Nay, if we might but have the truth, and not a 
“ superstitious vanity,” I should rejoice to see them connected 
with the memory of God’s saints; and, as I washed in the 
crystal waters, I allowed myself to believe that the spot had 
indeed been famous for some holy martyrdom, which perverse 
ingenuity has distorted into the fable aforesaid — of which I 
have only given the least ridiculous part. A fine and fragrant 
moss, which grows about the well, and some red spots in 
the stone, have furnished additional material to the fabulists, 
which tradition has not failed to preserve ; but the light and 
graceful temple which rises over it, with a figure of the saint, 
and which is ascribed to Margaret, the mother of Henry the 
Seventh, is its most substantial monument. It is now a chapel 
of the adjoining parish church, and I found it filled with 
plain benches, and used for a Sunday-school room, and for ser- 
vice in the English tongue. 

But I was en route for the vale of Clwyd, (pronounced Clooyd,) 
and so landing at Rhyl, I took a Welsh jaunting-car to St. 
Asaph. At the very entrance of the vale stands an old historic 
castle, in utter ruins, but overhung with ivy, and nobly bastion ed, 
and presenting a very venerable appearance. It was built 
before the Norman invasion, and stands near the scene .of that 
ancient battle, still commemorated in the national air — Morva 
Rhuddlan — which is full of traditional melancholy and plaintive 
sweetness. Near Rhuddlan Castle a bridge spans the Clwyd, 
adding a very picturesque feature to the scene; and just as 
you descend to the bridge, you observe, on the projecting 
wall of a mean cottage, the following inscription : “ This 

fragment is the remains of the building in which King Edward the 
First held his Parliament , A. D. 1283.” Oh! what a romantic 
land is Wales. England is fine prose; but Wales is all poetry. 
Even here I fell in love with it; for Rhuddlan is a truly 
historic pile. Almost its meanest memory is that of the 
progress of the second Richard, who tarried here on his way 
to Flint, to be deposed by Bolingbroke. Its latest memory, 
however, is that of the national Bardic Festival, called an 
Eisteddfod , which was celebrated here in 1850, with sad if not 
fatal results. A staging gave way, during the performance, and 
several of the fair and noble received severe contusions. 

I enjoyed a pleasant ride to St. Asaph, which finally disclosed 
to my view a cathedral of very unpretending dimensions, on a 


A BREAKFAST. 


201 


pretty hill, with a few houses grouped under its shadow, 
and a sightly bridge of stone. This the City of St. Asaph! 
Even so— for it is an ancient Episcopal See, and therefore it is a 
city, while Liverpool is but a town. Therefore do I love 
St. Asaph, because, of all cities I ever saw, it looks most like a 
village. Indeed, as a village it would be much to my liking, 
as still and quiet above most villages, and sweetly embosomed 
among trees, over which the solid tower of the ancient church 
presides with a motherly air, and ticks a sleepy time from its 
solemn clock. It was Saturday night when I reached the 
Mostyn Arms, and ordered my supper, and my bed-room. 

‘Here then,’ said I, ‘I will spend a Sunday in supremest 
loneliness; here I know nobody and am known of none; I 
will be a mystery to mine host of the inn, who seems to 
have no other guest, dropping nothing of mine errand in these 
parts, but going my way on Monday morning, with an air of 
dignified secrecy, and leaving him to imagine, as he may, what 
could have brought me to St. Asaph.’ 

A quiet breakfast at the inn was served with such noiseless 
neatness and despatch, at the appointed hour, that I grew 
sad with my bachelor comfort, feeling first, that I ought not to 
enjoy so much, except at home, and then longing to be there. It 
was not my hostess’s unimpeachable fare; bread all crisp 
without, and all snowy sponge within ; butter golden and 
fragrant ; prawns, gathered freshly from the clean sands of 
Rhyl ; eggs, that were never cold, and that now were hot to the 
very second of culinary time; and divers varieties and fruits 
that feasted the imagination even more than they gratified the 
taste ; it was not this substantial and meritorious breakfast 
that made the Mostyn Arms a delightful resting-place; but it 
was that entire order and decency that invested all, and that 
forbade the idea of a hotel , and seemed to remind me that it 
was Sunday; it was this that first charmed me, and then 
made me lonely, and then positively sad. There is often a 
domestic character about such an inn, in England and Wales, 
that is positively religious. I remember one, in which the inn- 
keeper always invited his guests to family prayers. 

The cathedral is the very plainest of its kind, but the choir is 
not without effective dignity and beauty. I attended the 
morning service, which was that of Pentecost, with exceeding 
pleasure ; and yet I observed with pain, that except the children 
of the Sunday-school, there were few present, who were not, 

9 * 


202 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


unmistakeably, of the higher classes, or at least of those which 
are considered very respectable. Where were the poor % The 
liveried servants of the neighbouring gentry, in their powder and 
plush, were perhaps of the humblest class represented ; but, of 
course, they are not the people. I was pleased, however, to see 
several of them kneeling with their masters’ families at the 
Holy Communion. 

After service, I was lingering among the tombs, in the church- 
yard, and had particularly observed that of the excellent Bishop 
Barrow, when one of the clergy approached me, and said, 
“ You are a clergyman, I’m sure; I beg you’ll come home with mo 
to dinner!” Never was I so much surprised, in my life, by such 
a salutation. Welsh hospitality was proving more than a High- 
land welcome ! I expressed my scruples to accept an invitation 
which was probably based on the idea that I was an Englishman, 
and a clergyman of the National Church ; but only so much the 
more did my new acquaintance press me to dine with him, 
offering to take me, after dinner, to a little Welsh parish, in 
the mountains, where he promised that I should hear the 
service in Welsh, and also a Welsh sermon, from himself. 
So very attractive a bill it was impossible to resist, and present- 
ing my card, I promised to be at the appointed place, at the 
proper hour. But I little knew how great a pleasure was in 
store for me. 

I easily found my way to the house, which stood back from 
the road; a modest mansion, encircled with trees and shrubs. 
My friend himself opened the door, uttering a Welsh salutation, 
which he interpreted to me by a warm grasp of the hand, 
while he pointed me to a Welsh inscription on the wall — that 
text of the beloved disciple, which enjoins him who loves God to 
love his brother also. I was yet in the first flush of grateful 
excitement, when I was ushered into a small drawing-room, 
where a lady advanced and gave me a cordial greeting. The 
clergyman introduced me to his wife, and to another lady who 
was with her, and pointing to a portrait on the wall, which I 
immediately recognized, said, “you will perhaps be glad to 
know that you are in a poet’s house, that this is the poet’s 
likeness, and that my wife is the poet’s sister.” I started 
and said — “ Can it be that this is Rhyllon ?”■ I saw, in an 
instant, that I was so happy as to have found my way, in 
this manner, to the residence of the late Mrs. Hemans, and to an 
acquaintance with that sister, of twin genius, whose music is as 


THE WELSH SERVICE. 203 

widely known as some of the most popular of Mrs. Hemans' 
delightful lyrics. 

I was made to feel at home, without further preface, and 
the dinner-hour passed delightfully, in conversation suited to 
the day and the services of the morning, with many recogni- 
tions of the power of our holy religion to obliterate differences of 
nationality and of education, and to bind entire strangers in 
practical brotherhood. The hour came to repair to the moun- 
tain sanctuary, which proved to be several miles distant, and 
the whole party of us went together, in a Welsh vehicle of 
peculiar shape, but well suited to the road. As we began to 
ascend into the hills, a fine view of the vale of Clwyd presented 
itself. From the great mountain ranges, on the north and west, 
to the crowned crag on which rises the Castle of Denbigh, the 
eye took a majestic sweep, over one of the loveliest valleys in 
Great Britain, and one full of romance and poetry. At last we 
came to the Church, a most primitive little structure, of ancient 
date, with a mere bell-gable, instead of a tower and spire, but of 
a most ecclesiastical pattern in every respect. The villagers of 
Tremeirchion were crowding the doorway, and on entering, I 
found a large assembly of the Welsh peasantry, neatly attired, 
and exceedingly intelligent in their appearance., A Welsh 
Prayer-book was put into my hand, which, being a strict 
translation of the English, I was enabled to use very profitably, 
in following the service. The whole was novel and attractive. 
I observed some old tombs and monuments, and was particularly 
pleased to find the altar, the candlesticks, and other parts of the 
Church, garnished with Pentecostal flowers — alike fragrant and 
suggestive of festive emotions, in harmony with the blessed day 
of the Holy Comforter. But the sweet and simple worship of 
the villagers absolutely enraptured me. Their responses were 
given in earnest, and their chants were particularly touching. 
I was especially pleased with the Gloria Patri , which, as 
perpetually recurring, I soon caught up, and was able to sing 
with them, in a language of which, in the morning, I had not 
known a word. Even now it lingers in my ear, with all the 
charms of that plaintive intonation which seemed to me charac- 
teristic of the Welsh tongue, and which singularly comports with 
its prestige , as the language of an ancient and romantic people, 
whose nationality has been never subdued, notwithstanding the 
ages of its absorption into that of a stronger race. 

The sermon was delivered with emotion, apparently extern 


204 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


poraneously, and was heard with fixed attention throughout. 
From the text, which I picked out in a Welsh Testament, I was 
able to gather some of its drift, and frequently to detect a 
scriptural quotation. It was evidently a Whitsuntide sermon, 
and the Holy Ghost, his gifts and consolations, were the blessed 
theme. A sweet hymn concluded the service ; and then, in the 
churchyard, this excellent pastor presented me to several of 
his worthy parishioners. How was I surprised when one of 
them asked me, in English, if I had ever been at Nasliotah ! A 
friend and relative of his had emigrated to Wisconsin, and had 
there been taken up by the brethren of that Mission, concerning 
which he had sent home many interesting accounts. I can 
scarcely do justice, with my pen, to the thrill of feeling inspired 
by finding that the blessed influences of Nashotah were felt, 
by brethren of a diverse tongue, far away over sea and land, 
in that lonely nook of the Welsh mountains. 

Deep in the wall of Tremeirchion Church is set the ancient 
tomb of an old priest of Llanerch, who was once its pastor. He 
was the wonder of his age for wisdom, and especially for the 
lore with which, like Solomon, he spake of trees and of plants. 
It was he who first translated the Te Deum into Welsh, and 
such was his sanctity that Satan could gain no advantage over 
him, except through his love of science. So then, as the story 
goes, Satan promised to reveal to him some mighty secret of 
nature, on condition that, after death, he might claim him ; and 
that, whether buried in the Church, or without, there should be 
no release from the bond. The wily clerk accepted the bargain, 
and became so wise that all the land confessed his astonishing 
attainments, as beyond comparison, in their day ; but Satan, 
for once, was outwitted. The sage took good care that his body 
should be buried neither without nor within the Church ; and 
accordingly it is shown to this day, as part of the wall itself, and 
jurists are agreed that 'Satan must be nonsuited whenever he 
ventures to set up a claim against the holy clerk of Llanerch. 

When I ventured to contrast, in conversation with my friend, 
the delightful fervour of this service, with the coldness of that 
which I had attended in the morning, at the cathedral, he 
answered, with feeling: — “We Welshmen love our own language; 
we talk English in traffic and in business, but Welsh is the 
language of our hearts. The Church has too generally neglected 
or even outraged this principle. Our Bishops have been seldom 
able to address us in the speech of our affections ; the dissenters 


MRS. HEMANS. 


205 


have earned many captive, merely by employing the tongue of 
the people, in their exciting harangues. Where the Welsh 
are served in their own tongue by their hereditary Church, they 
seldom forsake her, and my little parish is but a small example of 
what might be universal, if the Welsh were but considered wor- 
thy of being conciliated, by a tribute to their hereditary feelings, 
and their unconquerable nationality.” These appeared to me 
the counsels of truth and soberness. The Welsh are truly 
a people, in spite of their ancient subjugation, and deserve to 
be treated as such, all the more for their loyalty to the British 
Crown, and for the remarkable partiality which they seem to 
entertain towards the Prince of Wales, whose dignity I discov- 
ered to be something more, after all, than a mere fiction of 
heraldry. 

Our drive home was full of beautiful views, and after descend- 
ing into the valley, we pursued our way through Llanerch 
park, a fine estate, with which I was much pleased, although 
the agreeable company into which I had fallen might have 
made me satisfied with a scene far less lovely in itself. I spent 
a long evening at Rhyllon, restrained from departing by their 
kind importunities, and not unwilling to prolong a personal 
interview which must necessarily be the last, as well as the 
first, of what I could not but recognize as an enduring friend- 
ship. Conversation very naturally turned upon the departed 
glories of Rhyllon, as the nest of that tuneful nightingale, who 
filled up a most brilliant era of British poesy, by the graceful 
addition of a genuine female genius. I had always admired 
Mrs. Hemans, chiefly because of her truly feminine muse; 
because, in other words, her poetry is such as man can never 
produce. Unlike others of her sisterhood, she seems to have 
been unambitious of masculine effort, content to be her own 
fair self, and to give utterance to the delicious sentiments, 
the gushing affections, and the rapt enthusiasm which belong 
to the heart of woman. Delightful songstress! it was happi 
ness, indeed, to linger for a moment in her charming abode, 
and to gather from the conversation of those who had known 
and loved her, such hints of her life and character as a delicate 
fondness for her memory was not unwilling to drop in con- 
versation, for the benefit of a sincere admirer. It was all 
the more valuable, too, as mingling with many personal 
recollections of Bishop Ileber, whose connections with St. 
Asaph made him very frequently a guest at Rhyllon. It may 


206 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


be imagined that I was loth to say farewell ; but at last I 
tore myself away with those pains of parting, which are the 
penalty of a traveller’s friendships. The clock of the old 
cathedral tolled eleven as I passed under its aged tower on my 
return to the inn. 

In the morning I rose early, and took a walk down the vale, 
some two or three miles, to a secluded spot, where ancient piety 
had erected a chapel over a fountain, and where it now stands 
in one of the most picturesque piles of ruin I ever beheld. This 
was a favorite haunt of Mrs. Hemans, and one to which she has 
devoted some sweet verses. It goes, among the English, by the 
title of “ St. Mary’s Well,” but the Welsh call it Pfynonver Capel , 
a very musical and pleasing name, as they pronounce it. There 
it stands in a green mead, under the shade of a tufted hill, 
enwound with ivy and covered with venerable moss ; you enter 
the door, and in the sacred floor you behold a pool of lucid 
water, encompassed with an ancient kerb of stone, which pre- 
serves all the grace of outline of the base of a massive column in 
a Gothic cathedral. The old architect has shown, in this 
peculiarity of his pool, a truly inventive genius. I am sure 
the legends of the sacred spot must have been many and most 
romantic. 

A hurried walk back to St. Asaph, concluded my sojourn in 
the vale of Clwyd. Verily, “it is not in man that walketh to 
direct his steps;” my plans in visiting this retired spot had all 
been frustrated ; but so happy a disappointment has seldom fallen 
to my lot. The very slender enjoyment of puzzling mine host, 
with surmises as to my mysterious errand, had been lost in one 
of the richest pleasures of my life, and I went my way from a 
place which I had sought a few hours before as containing 
nobody to whom I could make myself known, feeling that 
it would be dear to me till death, as the home of beloved 
friends. 

I continued my journey by railway towards the Menai Straits, 
catching pleasant views by sea and land, especially those of 
Abergele and Gwyrch Castle. At Conway I stopped for an hour 
to survey the interesting ruins of its castle, into which the railroad 
has made its way, piercing the ancient walls, after spanning the 
river with a tubular bridge, and thus adding the utilitarian won- 
ders of modern architecture to the decaying splendours of the 
mediaeval builder. The castle is a mass of ruin within, but 
retains all its external form and comeliness of tower and battle- 


CONWAY. 


207 


ment. It was built by Edward I., and was the scene of many 
of the gayest revelries of his court, during the period in which he 
forged the chains of the Principality. I found the descriptions 
of my guide-book so literally correct, with respect to its present 
condition, that I need only transcribe them. “ The walls on all 
sides are covered with a green drapery of luxuriant ivy, and a 
meadow of grass lies in the open area of its courts. The warden’s 
duty is supplied by a whole tribe of crows, whose solemn parley 
is heard the instant that a stranger’s foot approaches, and the 
towers are all alive with blackbirds, and birds of all colours, whose 
notes resound the livelong day, throughout the deserted domain.” 
From the summit of one of the towers I had a fine view of the 
Conway, and of its widening entrance to the sea. A fisherman’s 
boat, left on the sands by the receding tide, added to the spirit of 
the scene, which in every respect was worthy of an artist’s study. 


Welsh Scenery and Antiquities 


The railway between Conway and Bangor runs along the sea- 
shore, close under the lee of the bold and rocky promontories, 
that defy the waves, on this imperial coast. Often indeed we 
found ourselves plunged into the black night of the tunnels which 
become necessary, in many places, from the precipitous nature of 
these cliffs, but, in general, I found even the distasteful confusion 
of a railway train incompetent to detract much from the emo- 
tions of sublimity inspired by the passage along such a shore. 
On one side, the sea was foaming under us, and on the other 
Penmaenmawr lifted its gigantic bulk to the clouds. Occasion- 
ally, as at Aber, we passed a beautiful glen, descrying waterfalls 
and other picturesque scenery ; and by keeping a good look-out, 
I had a full view of the cavern called Ogo, which opens to the 
sea, high up in a calcareous cliff, with a mouth, singularly like 
the arched entrance of a gothic minster. It is said to have 
afforded a retreat, in ancient times, to the invading army of Eng- 
land. At last, we descried the baronial towers of Penrhyn 
Castle, beautifully situated, on the foundations of an old Welsh 
palace, the fame of whose bold chiefs has, for ages, been the 
theme of bardic eulogy in Wales; and soon after, we were set 
down, at Bangor. It is a city in a vale, enclosed by an amphi- 
theatre of hills, and opening to the sea, with a fine view of the 
Menai Straits, and of the very striking water-front of Beaumaris, 
on the opposite shore of Anglesea. 

I found the cathedral, though an important feature in a view 
of the town, a very humble specimen of its class ; and the ser- 
vice which I attended, during a pouring rain, was indifferently 
performed. I retreated to the finely-situated hotel on the straits, 


MENAI BRIDGE. 


209 


and near the Menai Bridge, where, in the company of many 
other disappointed tourists, I was forced to grumble away an 
afternoon, from which I had expected no little pleasure. An 
angry wind was chafing the surface of the Menai water, and the 
little steamers, and other vessels, that went furiously by, were 
the only objects to animate the otherwise gloomy spectacle, on 
which I gazed listlessly, from the windows of the George Hotel. 

The next morning, though with an unsettled sky, gave us bet- 
ter weather, and I went forth to view the scenery, and to cross 
the Menai Suspension-Bridge, which, though now eclipsed by its 
neighbour, the far-famed Tubular, is to me much the more inter- 
esting of the two, as really a beautiful specimen of art, and not 
unworthy of the surrounding scenery. Crossing this bridge, and 
finding on the other shore of Anglesea a little steamer, with a 
load of Whitsuntide excursionists, going down to Caernarvon, I 
lost no time in getting on board, and soon had the satisfaction of 
passing under both the chain-bridge and the tube, and of realiz- 
ing, from that position, the immense height at which they over- 
hang the tides of the Menai. As creations of genius, they are 
indeed sublime ; and when a coach is seen creeping over the one, in 
bigness as it were a fly ; or when a railway train thunders through 
the other, and yet seems in comparison with it a mere toy, as it 
emerges and smokes along its way, one gets an idea of the immensity 
of each conception, which invests mechanic art with something like 
the attractive splendours of the painting and the poem. In the 
evening, as the sun was near its setting, I surveyed the great tube 
at my leisure, and walked over its roof, while a train was passing 
under me. It was surprising to observe its untrembling strength, 
and its security at so great a height, and with a span so vast : but 
I was even more delighted with the views it afforded me, of the 
glorious scenery, mountain and marine, with which it is encom- 
passed. They are singularly enriched with the charms of art and 
nature. The shipping, the suspension-bridge, with its arches and 
festoons ; the towns of Beaumaris and Bangor ; the tall column 
of the Marquis of Anglesea, and many pleasant villages and seats, 
as you look towards Caernarvon, afford a pleasing addition to the 
richly wooded shores, the flowing waters, the indented line of 
coast, the swelling hills, and last, but not least, the glorious suc- 
cession of peaks that stretch along the eastern background from 
Snowdon, to the Great Orme’s Head, which rises like a wall from 
the sea. 

But I must not forget my excursion to Caernarvon, through 


210 


IMPRESSIONS OP ENGLAND. 


these straits, which resemble so much the picturesque rivers of 
my own land. Many objects of interest enlivened the trip ; but 
wdien, at last, the old walls of Caernarvon Castle rose before my 
sight, in all their feudal grandeur and historic dignity, I felt like 
one inspired with rapture, though not the less impressed with a 
sense of something awful and august. The character of Edward 
as a tyrant and a conqueror, seemed to stand before me in monu- 
mental gloom and massive solemnity — and when I thought of 
the feeble cries of the first Prince of Wales, as he came to light 
in this stronghold of feudal tyranny, and coupled them with those 
midnight shrieks, at Berkeley, on the Severn, in which his inglori- 
ous life was extinguished, I realized afresh all those creeping 
chills of terror, with which the wildest imagery of romance 
affects the sensitive imagination of childhood. There it stood, 
magnificently irregular in outline, frowning over the little town 
beneath, like a coarse bully domineering over a timid boy. Its 
towers are really stupendous, and the aspiring parapets and em- 
battled turrets, that bristle up from their grim summit, make a 
strangely confused, but self-consistent figure, against the moun- 
tain back-ground, or the clear blue sky overhead. With such a 
fortress in full sight, it was most thrilling to give its history a 
mental review. Piled there by a cruel conqueror, to overawe 
the Welsh people, six hundred years ago, it seems less terrible 
with regard to them, than with reference to the story of his 
Queen, and his child. Such a nest for a new-made mother, and 
her babe ! In the depth of winter, the stern husband sent Queen 
Eleanor here, to give birth to her child. In one of its most 
gloomy recesses the royal infant was born ; and thus the insulting 
victor was enabled to continue the sovereignty of Wales, in his 
own family, while literally fulfilling his pledge, to give the Welsh 
a prince — born in their own country, who could speak no Eng- 
lish, and whose character was without fault ! Such a sovereign 
they had promised to accept, and to obey ; and hence the title 
of the eldest son of British sovereigns ever since. Thus, what 
is morally a mean and knavish fraud, is clothed, in historic narra- 
tive, with the glory of a warlike stratagem, and survives in im- 
perial heraldry as if there were no truth in the saying of the 
poet, that the herald’s art can never “ blazon evil deeds, or conse- 
crate a crime.” 

I was not altogether fortunate in my holiday, for the weather 
was alternating, continually, between shower and sunshine, and 
when I was fairly on the top of a stage-coach, for Llanberis, 1 


DOLBARDAN CASTLE. 


211 


found, to my sorrow, that shower was about to predominate for a 
time. However, to Llanberis I went, reserving a close inspection 
of the castle to my return. At intervals, I could get some idea 
of the loveliness of that charming lake, and of the wild glories 
of its surrounding scenery ; but ill-luck prevailed, and Snowdon 
wore his cap of clouds, nearly all the time, and I was forced to 
retire at last, somewhat surly with disappointment. I visited, 
however, the ruins of Dolbardan Castle, the central fortress of a 
chain of similar muniments, by which the ancient clans of Wales 
endeavoured to secure these mountain passes against the invaders. 
It stands, in picturesque dignity, upon the peninsula, which di- 
vides the waters of Llanberis into twin lakes, and is apparently 
the guardian of both. Here some Welsh lads, with a donkey, 
were sheltering themselves from the rain, and, by dint of much 
entreaty, and a very tempting appliance of money, I gained from 
them a Welsh song, which growing somewhat animated as they 
proceeded, cheered up the sombre scene, and gave to those anti- 
quated ruins a moment’s restoration of the echoes of minstrelsy, 
and of the musical tongue with which they resounded of yore, in 
peace and war, whep the figures of bards and heroes were the 
familiar tenants of the spot. As I returned to Caernarvon, the 
rain began to abate, and gradually the clouds withdrew, to my 
great satisfaction. The castle again rose before me, reviving the 
impressions with which I had first beheld it, but less stern, per- 
haps, from the land side, than when beheld from the sea. I was 
soon beneath its walls, which I first surveyed, in circuit, with in- 
creased astonishment and pleasure. The materials for this vast 
structure are said to have been furnished, in part, by the ruins of 
Segontium, the neighbouring station of the ancient Roman army ; 
but the feudal character now impressed on the old stones is, to 
me, far more interesting than their primitive history. The eagle- 
tower, in which the young Prince is said to have been born, is 
itself a fortress of massive solidity, and presents to the waters a 
front of bold defiance ; while on the other side, now blocked up 
and forlorn of aspect, beneath a lofty arch, is the gate, by which 
the expectant mother entered the gloomy hold, and which still 
goes by her name. The remains of a moat and drawbridge are 
visible, and so are the grooves in which the iron-toothed portcullis 
once rose and fell. I entered by a gate which looks toward the 
town, and over which is sculptured a rude effigy of the royal 
builder, deeply scarred by time. Within, the huge walls appear 
as an empty shell; they rise, like those of the great Roman 


212 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


amphitheatre, around an area of desolation. Here and there, in- 
deed, are the remains of state apartments, and of royal chambers, 
still marked by delicate architectural tracery and handsome en- 
richment ; but you tread on hillocks and grassy verdure, which 
swell above their buried splendours, and everywhere the ruin 
appears absolute and complete. By time-worn and dangerous 
stairways of stone, you wind up to the summits of the towers, 
and your guide constantly cautions you to beware of slipping, or 
of setting foot upon treacherous places. To me, the greatest in- 
terest was presented by the narrow corridors, which run between 
the inner and outer walls of the entire circuit, lighted only by 
the loop-holes, through which the signal horn was once sounded, 
and the arrow shot forth, and which open into embrasures that 
were filled of yore with armed men. Here is the projecting 
battlement, by which they protected the gateway below. Its 
floor is perforated for the discharge of missiles, and to enable the 
defenders of the castle to pour down scalding water, and melted 
lead, upon the heads of its assailants. In perambulating these 
gloomy recesses, I gained distinct ideas of mediaeval life and war- 
fare, from which my knowledge of history, such as it is, received 
a vast augmentation of freshness and reality. 

Dismissing my guide, I sat down on the summit of the eagle- 
tower and lost myself in revery. The daws, chattering amid the 
battlements, alone interrupted the solemn stillness of the moment. 
Before me was Snowdon, now disrobed of the clouds he had worn 
through the day, and lifting a bald crown of snow to the skies. 
The serried outline of his dependant mountains beautifully varied 
the scenes toward which they stretched away on every side. I 
turned, and there was the broad glare of the descending sun upon 
the sea : I was looking towards my own dear home. In the 
midst of meditative pleasures, I longed for the companionship of 
many, between whom and me there rolled a thousand leagues of 
ocean ; and, for awhile I forgot, in the melancholy of that reflec- 
tion, the romantic impressions which are peculiar to the spot. 
When I recovered my thoughts, it was only to feel more forcibly 
the solemnity of the short life, in which we stand between so 
dread a past, and so momentous a future ; and before I descended 
from that lofty station, I knelt and worshipped Him who, alone, 
is Everlasting. 

The weather increased in serenity as the day declined. I heard 
the clatter of hoofs, and a coach-horn sounding in the streets, 
and hastily took my seat, for a drive to Bangor, relinquishing a 


CAPEL CURIG. 


213 


projected tour through Beddgelert and Tremadoc, which I had 
found impracticable, with reference to other plans. My drive in 
return was not less agreeable than my sail in coming. Every- 
where the scene was beautiful, .and I was amused with the chatter 
of a couple of Welsh peasant women, in short petticoats and 
men’s hats, who had mounted the coach-top and sat by my side. 

We had bright moonlight that evening, on the waters of the 
Menai, and a band amused us, with music, in the grounds of the 
hotel. I was agreeably surprised to hear, in close connection with 
the national air of England, the sprightly strain of “ Hail Colum- 
bia,” which, however inferior as a musical composition, had a 
strong power over me, as I heard it then, and I breathed a warm 
aspiration to God for a blessing on my native land. 

We were favoured with a glorious morning, and I took stage- 
coach, soon after breakfast, for a drive through North Wales. 
After whirling through the suburbs of Bangor, and traversing 
the “ Bethesda slate-quarries,” we entered the terrific pass of 
Nant Ffrancon. On a reduced scale, the scenery here is quite 
Swiss. The rains had swelled the mountain torrents, and every- 
where they were leaping down the steeps, in beautiful threads of 
silver, which terminated in fine cascades. The road wound along 
the side of a mountain, with a deep descent beneath ; and there 
was spread out a broad green valley, level as a floor, with a river 
winding through, and the figure of an angler stalking along its 
bank. On the further side of the vale rose another mountain, 
abruptly, to the skies. I was reminded of Nant Ffrancon after- 
wards, in the Swiss Oberland, after crossing the Brunig into the 
Yale of Meyringen, as I was making my way towards Interlachen. 
These Welsh Alps are indeed destitute of snowy tops and 
descending glaciers. Yet they are full of sublime features ; and 
the flocks which climb their sides, with fleeces of milky white- 
ness, give a pastoral air to the solitude, which subdues the other- 
wise repulsive aspect of some of their features. 

It is vain for me to attempt a minute description of the plea- 
sures of this day’s drive. The scenery was richly varied, and 
after seeing the finest scenery of Savoy, and of the Swiss Can- 
tons, I still recall it with satisfaction, and long to go through it 
once more. Our way lay along the skirts of the dreary Lake 
Ogwen, and then over its desolate heath ; from which our emerg- 
ing into the enchanting Yale of Capel Curig, was like turning 
from a page of Dante’s Inferno to a passage in his description of 
Paradise. Here majesty and loveliness indeed combine, in the 


214 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


sweet diversity of woods and waters, and vales and mountains, to 
furnish an ideal of natural beauty, which might satisfy a poet or 
a painter. Amid all, rises the glorious summit of old Snowdon, 
of which I obtained my finest impressions from this spot. The 
scenery of the river Swallow, by which our way continued, is 
marvellously picturesque, and its waterfall is admirable, even to 
the eye of an American. Near Bettws-y-coed, the panorama 
assumed a more pastoral character, and gave us a glimpse into 
the Yale of Llanrwst ; and then, for a long time, every turn 
opened new scenes of beauty and delight. At Cerrig-y-Druddion, 
if the scenery was distasteful again, not so were the trout from 
the mountain streams, on which I made a delicious repast. It 
was from this place, to which the poor prince had made good his 
retreat, that the primitive Caradoc, with his family, were carried 
prisoners to Rome, where he made that famous speech, which is 
the memorial of his name. Through various scenes of interest, 
which I might be more willing to enumerate, were only their names 
pronounceable, I reached Cor wen, where was the hold of Glen- 
dower, and where, in the ancient Church, I visited the tomb 
inscribed Jorrwerih , Vicarius de Corvaen Ora pro eo. At the inn 
sat an old blind Welshman, playing the Welsh harp, and solicit- 
ing charity, which, for Homer’s sake, no one could refuse. 
Thenceforward the scenery again increased in interest. 

The Yale of Edeyrnion opened into our view as we continued 
our journey along the windings of the beautiful outlet of the 
Bala Lake, and from hence to Llangollen, beauty, rather than 
grandeur, was characteristic of the scenery. But no every-day 
sort of beauty is to be imagined when I speak of this charming re 
gion, at which it was a feast to look, even for a moment. The 
swells and slopes of the land ; the variety of the foliage ; the 
graceful curves of the river-banks; and the outlines of the 
mountainous distance, with the hues which various tillage, and 
crops, gave to the meadows and the upland, were continual 
sources of delight, in which there was no monotony, and no sur- 
feit. Nothing was wanting, but only the kindling eye of some 
enraptured friend to meet my own, and a voice to say with mine, 
“ This indeed is a paradise !” Such would be the exclamation 
of any admirer of natural scenery, at the point where the ruin- 
ous pile of the Abbey of Yalle Crucis lifts into view the arch 
and tracery of its great East window, amid the harmonious 
boughs and verdure of gigantic trees. It is a favourite view 
with painters, and has become familiar from the efforts of both 


PL AS NEWYDD. 


215 


pencil and burin. Scarcely less so is the conical hill, which 
overhangs Llangollen, and on the summit of which some remnants 
of wall that serve to give a very picturesque completeness to its 
outline, retain the name of Castell Dinas Bran, with the reputa- 
tion of a primeval British work. At Llangollen, a handsome 
bridge, which spans the river Dee, blends with the prospect of 
the town in pleasing proportion. I climbed a little eminence, 
and broke through a sort of copse, into the pleasant grounds of 
Plas Newydd, the famous retreat of two eccentric ladies, who, 
not quite a hundred years ago, while Llangollen was yet unsung 
and unknown, became recluses of the Yale, and lived here in 
philosophical contempt of the world, and in ardent communion 
with nature. They both rest in the parish churchyard, where 
one stone records their several dates, and those of an humble girl, 
who was long their faithful servant. As they were persons who 
had figured in the gay world, their story has become a sort of 
local tradition, which is always repeated with respect ; and por- 
traits of Miss Ponsonby and Lady Eleanor Butler, in full Welsh 
costume, are sold in the shops, and bung up at the inn. I could 
not greatly admire their cottage ; but it was, no doubt, quite snug, 
and pretty enough for two old ladies that were of a mind to be 
philosophers 






CHAPTER XXVI. 


The Wye and the Severn — Bristol and Wells . 

The next day found me again ascending the Malvern hills, on 
a coach-top, the guard playing the merriest notes, upon his horn, 
as we rapidly trotted through the town. After another view of 
the vale of Gloucester, we turned into Herefordshire, and de- 
scended into the valley that, spreads from the western slope of 
the Maivems. We had fine views of Edensor, the estate of 
Lord Somers, and of a monumental column, upon the crown of a 
hill. I was glad, too, to see on the roadside, marking some 
parochial boundary, a stone cross, such as is frequent on the Con- 
tinent, and might, without any evil, be a familiar object in any 
Christian country. As we approached Ledbury, we met a band 
of gipsies in their proverbial rags and wretchedness, skulking 
along the road, and exhibiting very few of those bewitching 
peculiarities of appearance with which painters and romancers 
are fond of investing them. I had never met them before, and 
was sorry not to be able to stop and talk with them. An im- 
pression of awe haunted me for some time as I meditated upon 
their mysterious barbarism, and tried to recall the glimpse of 
their weird features, which I had caught as they passed by. 1 
never saw any of their kind, on any other occasion afterwards, 
and think they must be growing scarce, even in England. 

At Ledbury I was particularly struck with an outside view of 
the parish Church, which is but one of a thousand churches in 
England which of themselves are enough to reward a traveller for 
journeying through it. Sir Walter Scott has justly awarded to 
them the credit of being the most beautiful temples in the world, 
and the most becoming for their holy purposes. Our next stage 
brought us to Ross so famous for the memory of John Kyrle and his 


THE MAN OF KOSS. 


217 


beneficent deeds. Its “ heaven-directed spire ” surmounts the hill, 
on which the town is built ; and every where, in Ross, the traces 
of his good works, as well as many of the works themselves, 
survive to consecrate his name. The house in which he dwelt is 
adorned with a medallion portrait of “the man of Ross,” sunk in 
the wall, and visible to every passenger. He was indeed all 
that the poet has made him in descriptive verse; and he was 
something more, for he was a zealous Churchman, and a faithful 
attendant upon the daily service. I made my way to the Church, 
and was pleased to find its churchyard cross entire, and a cross 
upon its gable. The interior, though very old fashioned, was 
adorned with flowers, in honour of Pentecost, and its monuments 
are many and curious. Among them was one of those altar- 
tombs, on which lie at full length a knight and his sweet dame, 
the latter with her delicate hand held in his rough grasp, as if their 
union were inseparable by death itself. I was deeply touched 
by such a memorial of love, which we must believe to have been 
sincere, and to which fancy attributes all that is constant on the 
part of the lady, and all that is chivalrous on the part of her 
lord. But where is the monument of Kyrle? There is a bust 
and an inscription, but his monument, like Christopher Wren’s, is 
the Church itself; for he built its spire, and something more 
beside. There is a story, too, that when the bells were cast, he 
was present, and threw into the melting metal a silver tankard, 
from which he and the workmen had just drunk to the king’s 
health. As I was passing round, the sexton said to me, “ you 
shall now see something that you never saw before,” and he 
pointed out a couple of elm trees, growing in the Church, and 
reaching to the roof. What is the more remarkable, they are 
growing in the pew where the Man of Ross was accustomed to 
worship, as if to testify the fidelity of God to the promise — “ He 
shall be like a tree, planted by the water-side, his leaf also shall 
not wither.” One would almost believe that they must have 
been planted on purpose, but the truth is rather the reverse. 
They are in fact the fruit of Kyrle’s own planting; for he set a 
row of elms in the churchyard, which were cut down by a churl- 
ish vicar, but from which these shoots have sprung up in the 
house of God, as it were in silent remonstrance. It is hard not 
to see something providential in the coincidence, by which, what 
would be a curiosity anywhere, is thus connected with the blessed 
example of one of the most benevolent and virtuous of mankind. 
The trees screen one of the windows, and appear to thrive in the 

10 


218 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


climate of the sanctuary, tlieir leaves putting forth earlier, and 
falling later than those of the trees in the churchyard. 

A fair was going on in the town, and the streets were filled 
with the peasantry. Everywhere pedlars were setting forth the 
merits of their wares, and among them was a fellow bawling — 
“ Here ’s the last dying speech and confession, &c.” — as he ex- 
hibited the doleful print of a gallows and its dangling victim. 
Such incidents are not rarely met in the narratives of a certain 
class of novelists, and I have certainly read, somewhere, of just 
such a market-day as I encountered at Ross. I walked slowly 
down the hill into the valley of the Wye, turning constantly to 
observe the fine situation of the town, till the coach overtook 
me. The country here is rich but simply pretty, and as yet it 
revealed none of the glories for which the Wye is celebrated. 
Goodrich Court, a modern mansion, is a fine object, however, 
and the remains of Goodrich Castle are an imposing feature in 
the scene; and all the more so for its association with the 
cavaliers, from whom it was finally taken by Cromwell, and 
reduced to ruins. As you enter Monmouthshire, a glorious 
view begins to open, and from about this point the scenery of the 
river increases in wildness and grandeur. I was, at first, at a 
loss to know why Wordsworth should have called the Wye sylvan, 
for such was far from being its character, in Herefordshire ; but 
now the entire appropriateness of the epithet was disclosed, and 
yet I am well aware that I lost many of the finest features of 
the stream by not descending it in a boat. With Monmouth 
itself, I was somewhat disappointed, its Church having suffered 
many things of many churchwardens, and the remains of the 
priory, where Henry the Fifth was born, having become in 
corporated with the modern walls of a boarding-school. I left 
Monmouth with gratitude to Fluellyn for his idea of its wondrous 
resemblance to Macedon, which I should not have imagined, had 
he not helped the world to it. The glories of the scenery round 
St. Briavel’s and near the tiny little Church at Llandogo, should 
have had the further benefit of his minute and luminous descrip- 
tive powers, as I can liken it to nothing else in the world but 
itself, for its combination of simply rural features, with those 
which are highly picturesque. An American is struck with the 
charm imparted to such scenery, by a pretty church or a neat 
and secluded hamlet, quite as much as he is impressed by the 
scenery itself ; and I was often led to think what the valley of the 
Mohawk might be, had it the advantage of that still retirement, 


TIDENHAM VICARAGE. 


219 


and of those Arcadian groves, which impart a peculiar effect to 
the sterner beauties of the Wye. At Tintern Parva we were 
shown the ancestral habitation of Fielding, and passed a new 
church which was well worthy of note. But the neighbourhood 
of Tintern Abbey eclipsed every other thought, and I strained 
my sight for the earliest possible glimpse of the delightful vision. 
A storm which had been threatening, broke upon us, unfortunate- 
ly, at the critical point, and I first beheld that magnificent ruin in 
circumstances which increased its desolation. In spite of the 
rain, however, I embraced an opportunity of entering its walls 
and surveying it for a few moments, amid the wild confusion of 
the elements. The rain dashing through its rich but broken 
tracery, and the wind tossing the gorgeous drapery of its mant- 
ling ivy, with the melancholy sighs it gave amid the columns, and 
along the aisles, deepened the solemn impression of the spot, and 
gave a heightened interest to the thoughts of its former sacred uses, 
when it resounded with the chant of priests and the swells of 
music from the organ. As I purposed a more leisurely visit in 
fairer weather, I was willing to have seen it thus amid storm and 
tempest. I resumed my journey to Chepstow ; and as the storm 
soon abated, and was succeeded by sunshine, I had many fine 
views of the windings of the river, some of which are very bold, 
sweeping, amid precipitous banks, crowned with the richest 
foliage and verdure. Chepstow itself has many beauties, as seen 
from the Wye, and after slightly surveying the town and castle, 
I crossed the iron bridge, and drove to Tidenham, where a kind 
welcome awaited me at the vicarage, from one with whom I had 
corresponded long before I left America. I was sorry, how- 
ever, to find myself a source of disappointment to the children 
of my kind entertainers, who had been unable to divest them- 
selves, notwithstanding the benevolent dissuasions of their parents, 
of the romantic idea that the American visitor would present 
himself in aboriginal costume, and contribute to their amusement 
by exhibiting his red visage, and lending them his bow and arrows. 
Their father is now a Missionary Bishop, in Africa. 

This vicarage is of modern erection, but in very good ecclesi- 
astical style, and has a pretty garden, in which I saw my amiable 
friend the vicar taking the air, when I rose in the morning. I 
was glad that so pleasant an abode had fallen to the lot of so good 
a man. After breakfast, while he visited his poor and sick, I 
went on a little pony, with a servant at my side, to Cockshoot 
Hill, which looks down upon the Wye nearly opposite the Wind- 


220 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


cliff. Tidenham itself stands on a narrow peninsula, with the 
Wye on one side, and the broad Severn on the other, and just 
below Cockshoot Hill this peninsula forces the river Wye to 
make an extraordinary bend beneath its precipitous banks, on 
which stands the pretty hamlet of Llancaut. The view, at this 
point, is therefore peculiarly fine, and affords, in one spot called 
“ Double-view,” the unusual spectacle of both rivers — the Wye, 
with its sylvan charms on one hand, and the expanse of the 
Severn, with its ships and steamers, on the other. I was best 
pleased with the Wye, the Windcliff, the projecting rocks called 
the Twelve Apostles, and the entire scene on that side, as far as 
the eye could stretch, above and below. The farms and fruit-trees 
of the peninsula were also pleasing in their way, and the more 
so, because it was now the season of blossoms, and every breeze 
was fragrant. My return was enlivened by views of the Severn, 
which were often much heightened in effect by the turns of the 
road, and the openings amid thick trees, through which I descried 
them ; and I was gratified to be joined by a labouring man, who 
insisted on walking with us, and pointing out favourite prospects, 
apparently not so much in hopes of a fee, as to testify his regard 
for a guest of the vicar, of whom he spoke in unbounded terms 
of respect, as the blessing of the country round. I found the 
Church opened, and service going on : and when it was over, was 
informed by the vicar himself of the various merits of the sacred 
place as an architectural specimen. The font was an ancient 
Norman one, of lead, and is regarded as curious. So are the 
windows, which exhibit a semi -flamboyant tracery, by no means 
common. A gradual restoration is going on, at the expense of 
the vicar and his personal friends; but I was amused by the 
white-washed tower, which remains thus disfigured, while the rest 
of the Church has been reduced to its natural color. It seems 
that this white tower has long been a landmark of the Severn, 
and serves a useful purpose, in the piloting of vessels. With an 
interference which would strike us Americans as very arbitrary, 
the Government, therefore, forbade that the tower of Tidenham 
Church should be made to look any less like a whited sepulchre ; 
and so it stands, as a pillar of salt, to this day. 

The rest of the day was devoted to an excursion to Tintern, 
to which the ladies contributed their agreeable society. The 
party proved a very cheerful one, and we encountered scarcely 
any fatigue of which our fairer associates did not bear them full 
share. In surveying the remains of Chepstow castle, only, were 


TINTERN ABBEY. 


221 


we without their company. I found it a noble ruin, even after 
my visit to Caernarvon. It was reduced to ruin by Cromwell, 
after a desperate fight, but one of its towers was long after- 
wards — for twenty years — the prison of Henry Marten, the re- 
gicide. It must once have been a splendid hold of feudalism, 
and its halls and windows still retain many traces of the Saxon 
and Norman richness of its original beauty. 

We climbed the WindclifF, and thence surveyed the combined 
glories of land, and sea, and of inland stream, which are its pecu- 
liar charm. Where else can be seen such a prospect : such inland 
river scenery, blended with the view of a broad arm of ocean, 
side by side, and apparently not united ? It would be vain for 
me to attempt description, but I found it all I could ask ; and on 
that breezy height recalled to mind those incomparable lines of 
Wordsworth, composed upon the spot or near it, in which he 
exhorts the lover of Nature to store up such scenes in memory, 
and thus make “the mind a mansion for all lovely forms.” 
There are caves below, through which one of my female friends 
led me like a Sybil; and then I went under her kind escort 
through a wild American-like wood, to rejoin our carriage. Two 
miles more of delightful scenery, and I stood again in Tintern 
Abbey, and wandered through its holy aisles, and climbed to its 
venerable summit. Here, over the lofty arches of the transept, I 
walked, as in a path through a wood, the shrubbery growing 
wildly on both sides, as on the brow of a natural cliff. White 
roses flourish there in abundance ; and it is only at intervals that 
you can get a glimpse of the Abbey-floor beneath. Around you 
is a beautiful prospect of the river, and of an amphitheatre of 
hills; and when you stand in the aisles below, and view these 
same hills through the broken windows, you feel that they should 
never have been glazed, except with transparent glass. On the 
whole, when the beauty of its situation is fully taken into con- 
sideration, in addition to the original graces of its architecture, — 
its graceful pillars, its aerial arches, its gorgeous windows, — and 
when we observe the fond effect with which nature has clothed 
the pile in verdure, as if resuming her power with tenderness, 
and striving to repair the decays of art, with her own triumphant 
creations ; when all these, and other attractions which cannot be 
enumerated in description, are united in the estimate, I cannot 
but give to Tintern Abbey the credit of being the fairest sight, of 
its kind, which ever filled my vision. I have since seen many 
similar objects, combining architectural beauties with those of 


222 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


nature, but were I allowed to choose one more glimpse of such a 
picture, among all, I think I should say to the enchanter — “let 
me have another look at Tintern.” 

Crossing the broad mouth of the Severn, in a little steamer, 
we entered the Avon, of a fine afternoon, just as a fleet of similar 
steamers, taking the tide at flood, were hurrying out to sea. It 
was a most animating sight, as one after another chased by — this 
for London, that for Dublin, another for Glasgow, and so on ; all 
flaunting the red cross of St. George, and displaying a full com- 
pany on deck. I was agreeably surprised by the beauty of this 
river, which is varied by woods and cliffs, and many striking 
* objects, among which a little ruinous -chapel, upon a verdant 
peninsula, particularly struck me, and the more so, as having 
been formerly used by fishermen, before going upon their voyages 
in the channel, as a place of prayer for protection and success. 
But this river has an historical claim upon the affectionate regard 
of America, as having sent forth two expeditions to our shores, 
of the greatest consequence to our whole continent. Upon these 
waters crept forth to sea, in 1497, the little “ Matthew,” on 
whose deck stood Sebastian Cabot, “ uncovering his fine Venetian 
head” to take a last farewell of his native city, as he boldly 
stood out to the ocean in search of the New World. Upon that 
expedition depended the discovery of the mainland of America, 
and the occupation of the northern half by the Anglo-Saxon race. 
To this glorious reminiscence has been added the fine contrast 
presented by the “ Great Western,” as she launched forth, in this 
same river, only a few years ago, in her majestic strength, to 
inaugurate a new era in the art of navigation, and to unite the 
Old World and the New by bonds of intercommunication, which 
imagination itself had never ventured to portray in their present 
stage of wonderful development. “ Upon no waters,” says a 
popular writer, “ save those of the winding Avon, have two such 
splendid adventures as these been enterprized.” 

Passing under the heights of Clifton, and landing in Cumber- 
land basin, I climbed the steep, took my lodgings at Clifton, and 
then went on foot into Bristol, over Brandon-hill, enjoying the 
magnificent panorama which unfolds on every side, and compre- 
hends the finest features of town and country, of water and of 
land. My first thought was the famous Church of St. Mary 
Kedcliffe, and thither I took my way. The poetry of Chatterton 
was the delight of my boyhood, and this Church I had long de- 
sired to see. I found it undergoing restoration, but not the less 


CHATTERTON. 


223 


open to inspection. It is indeed a masterpiece of architecture ; its 
clustered pillars, and the fan-like spread of its vaulting, with its 
fourfold aisles, and rich quatrefoil windows, affording the keenest 
satisfaction to the artist, and affecting every man of taste with 
overwhelming emotions of religion, which may well be made 
salutary to the soul. Here are some pictures by Hogarth, of a 
character superior to his general efforts; one of which, represent- 
ing “ the Ascension of our Lord,” shows him to have possessed 
fine sensibilities, and a delicate appreciation of the more poetical 
provinces of his art. The monument of a Master Canynge,” the 
Mayor, who figures so richly in the “Bristowe tragedy,” attracted 
my profound attention, as did also several others less mentiona- 
ble, though very interesting. Of Chattertori himself, no monu- 
ment is to be seen, save the old muniment-room, and the chests, 
from which he fished his bold idea. The monument, which was 
erected a few years since to his memory, has for some reason been 
removed, and now lies dishonoured in the crypt. It is impossible 
to think of that marvellous boy without pity, in spite of his moral 
delinquencies; and I can scarcely read the ballad of Charles 
Bawdin without tears, excited as much by the fate of its author, 
as of its hero. His moral perceptions must have been of a fine 
cast, or he never could have conceived that poem; and who 
would not choose to believe that had he encountered mercy and 
loving-kindness from those who ought to have befriended him, his 
splendid genius might have been made a rich blessing to himself 
and to the world ? 

As the solemn twilight was coming on, I visited the cathedral. 
I had not promised myself much from such a visit, for ’tis a muti- 
lated pile, of which the entire nave is lacking. Yet, whether 
it, was the effect of the dim and dying daylight, or whether the 
architecture and the sepulchral charms of the holy place over- 
powered me, I left it with the profoundest impressions of awe 
and tender emotion. The old Norman Chapter-house is an archi- 
tectural gem, with its intersecting arcades, its rich diapering, 
and nail-head ornaments, its twisted mouldings, and spiral 
columns, and the zig-zag groinings of its roof. In the vestry I 
was shown a curious Saxon carving of Christ saving a soul. My 
attention was also directed, by the sub-sacrist who attended me, 
to the ruins of the Bishop’s palace, which fell under the violence 
of the mob, in 1831, when good Bishop Gray so beautifully 
distinguished himself and his Order, by exhibiting an apostolic 
harmony of meekness and resolution. But it was in walking the 


224 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


aisles of the cathedral itself, under the deepening shadows of the 
evening, that I experienced the full effects which such a place 
should inspire. From the old and decaying monuments of knights 
and their dames, I passed with elevated feeling to the modern 
achievements of Bacon and of Chantry. A kneeling female 
figure, reflecting the faint light from its pale features and white 
drapery, and standing out of the darkness, like a pure soul emerg- 
ing from the valley of the shadow of death, gave me a sensation 
of unspeakable reverence. Hard by, a chequered day-beam 
played on the fine outline of a bust of Robert Southey, and this 
apparition also affected me ; but when I came to the little tablet 
which marks the grave of Mrs. Mason, and spelt out, word by 
word, the incomparable tribute of conjugal love which it bears, 
I was overwhelmed; and as I read (I am not ashamed to own it) 
my tears dropped upon the marble floor. There was barely day- 
light enough for the effort, but I had known the poem from my 
earliest childhood, and possibly to this fact I must attribute its 
overpowering effect upon my feelings. It is to be condemned 
perhaps as an epitaph; but who can think of criticism when 
borne along on such a tide of heavenly affection and triumphant 
faith f I trembled to think I was standing upon the relics of so 
much loveliness and purity. 

“ Take, holy earth, all that my soul holds dear !” 

She must have been an angel, to have inspired so much feeling 
as agony has compressed into that one line ! and then, what an 
image of more than mortal beauty rises before us as we read — 

“ Speak, dead Maria ! breathe a strain divine, 

Even from the grave thou shalt have power to charm.” 

And did ever love paint such a portrait, in a few touches of 
passionate apostrophe, as in those in which the heart of her hus- 
band speaks on % 

“ Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee ; 

Bid them in duty’s sphere as meekly move ! 

And, if as fair , from vanity as free ; 

As firm in friendship, and as fond in love !” 

Never was the glory of true female character so enshrined in 
language before ; but this is not all ! The ideal of the Christian 
woman is brought out in its completeness in what follows : — 

“ Tell them — though ’tis an awful thing to die, 

’T was even to thee /” 


A CHARITABLE MAN. 


225 


Here is the tender form, and timid step, with all the heroism of 
the fernal^ saint, descending into the dark valley : and at the 
same time here is the transcendent tribute — 

’Twas even to thee / 

And now comes triumphant faith : — 

“ Yet that dread path once trod, 

Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high, 

And bids the pure in heart behold their God.” 

I am probably failing in my desire to carry my reader along with 
me in my own conception of the exceeding merit of these verses, 
as embodying some of the sublimest, and some of the tenderest 
affections of the regenerate heart, with the smallest possible sac- 
rifice of that eloquence which is generally mute, in proportion 
to its expressiveness: but I cannot deny myself the pleasure of 
recording the fact, that their power over my own feelings, as I 
read them on the spot, and in the circumstances which I have 
hinted, was such as beggars description. 

A moonlight ramble on the heights of Clifton, and another in 
the early morning, next day, concluded my rapid visit to this 
region ; and I took the top of the coach soon after to the city of 
Wells. This little journey over the Mendip hills, which gave me 
frequent opportunities for walking, was enlivened by the conversa- 
tion of a sharp-featured little dissenting minister, who volunteered 
his opinions upon all subjects, and who seemed peculiarly anxious 
to give me his own opinions of the clergy of the Church. “There 
are,” said he, with an oracular look, and the keen expression of 
a desire to know how the fact might strike me, “there are 18,000 
Church clergymen in England : of these, there may possibly be 
4,000 who are in different degrees evangelical ; 4,000 are vicious 
and idle; and 10,000, including all the young clergy, are Puseyites , 
who neither know how to teach the Gospel, nor what the Gospel 
is!” He thought there was no prospect of any disruption be- 
tween Church and State ; and, at last, whispered in my ear, that 
he had serious thoughts of emigrating to America. I was ama- 
zed at this little man’s utterly unconscious lack of Christian 
charity. Of the 10,000 clergy whom he thus denounced in 
the gross, as evil-minded men, I had myself been for weeks close- 
ly associated with many, in whom I had seen exemplified every 
Christian grace, and from whom I had gathered lessons of practi- 
cal piety, for which 1 had reason to bless God. For patience in 

10 * 


22C 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


tribulation, and for pastoral fidelity ; for lives devoted to the good 
of men, and fervent with zeal for the glory of God, I had never 
seen their equals; and now, to hear them stigmatized in a manner 
so cool and professional, by one who soon betrayed his personal 
animosity by adding — £ * and us, dissenting preachers, they treat as 
a race of upstart tinkers” — made me lament for poor human 
nature and its deceitful workings even in good men’s hearts ! T 
consoled my friend by hinting that, in America, the Presbyterian 
and Congregational pastors had long professed a somewhat simi- 
lar contempt for the clergy of the Church, having for nearly two 
centuries been the religious chieftains of our country ; but I ven- 
tured to intimate that we did not on that account feel the less 
respect for ourselves, or think it right to deny them the credit of 
many estimable qualities, and the right of being judged by Him 
who alone searcheth the heart. I believe it was after this, that 
the worthy man proposed adding himself to our population ; a 
scheme in which I could not discourage him, convinced, as I was, 
that a taste of our religious condition might perhaps change his 
views as to the comparative evils of the English Church, and 
those of the Saturnalia of unbelief which are fast developing un- 
der the influences of our illimitable sectarianism. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 


Glastonbury — Wells — The Jubilee . 

I found in the ruins of the abbey at Glastonbury a full re- 
ward for my efforts to pay them a visit. The architecture of 
these ruins is of a character widely different from that of Tintern ; 
and the surrounding scenery, though marked by one bold emi- 
nence called the Tor, is that of a fat agricultural region, wholly 
unlike the romantic valley of the Wye. Yet the old wattled 
church of the early Britons which once stood here ; the tradition 
that Joseph of Arimathea proclaimed the gospel on this spot ; the 
legendary interest that attaches to the memory of St. Dunstan, 
and the superb remains of what was once the richest monastery 
in the kingdom, invest the now silent precincts of the Abbey 
with peculiar charms. The chapel called St. Joseph’s is still an 
exquisite specimen of art, and in its crypt is a spring reputed to 
derive extraordinary virtues from some association with his visit. 

A huge stone coffin, lying empty and dishonoured in the aisle of 
the Abbey Church, was shown to me as having once contained 
the corpse of King Arthur. Here again was the figure of an old 
abbot ; and as I strode over the clovered floor of the holy place, 
amid broken corbels and shattered columns, I found an artist 
seated among them, at his task, sketching the beautiful rem- 
nant of an old turret, which rises amid the surrounding wreck, 
almost the only uninjured memorial of the former glory of the 
pile. At a distance, which gives one an idea of the great extent 
of the old establishment, stands the kitchen of the monastery/^ 
still entire. It is an octagon, of vast circumference, and contains 
severab curious relics of the Abbey. I next visited St. Benedict’s 
Church, which disputes with several others the claim of being the 
oldest in the kingdom ; and so, taking a post-chaise, drove back 


228 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


to Wells, after a due reverence to the celebrated thorn which is 
said to be the lineal successor of St. Joseph’s walking-stick, and 
which blooms every year, at Christmas as well as in the early 
summer. Of its blossoming at Christmas, or Epiphany, I sup- 
pose there can be no doubt. I was assured, on the spot, that 
such was the case. King Charles used to make merry with the 
papists by calling their attention to the fact that it refused to 
observe the Gregorian Calendar; and when, in 1752, New Style 
was introduced into England, some two thousand of the neigh- 
bouring peasantry assembled to watch this thorn on Christmas- 
eve, who, when they found it stubbornly postponing its homage, 
but punctually putting forth blossoms at Old Christmas, as 
usual, refused to recognize the novelty, and kept their holidays 
accordingly. It must be supposed, therefore, that Twelfth day 
is the real festival which it honours with its strange efflores- 
cence. 

The cathedral of Wells struck me as surpassing all that I had 
yet seen, in its way. The exterior view is fine, and the front is 
enriched with the most lavish display of sculpture, kings, queens, 
and saints, each in an embellished niche, and all together convey- 
ing a most gorgeous impression to the beholder. But the interior 
was far more impressive. Its nave was fitted with a pulpit and 
benches, and had the appearance of being used and frequented. 
But the choir and Lady-chapel were in process of restoration, on 
a magnificent scale, and appeared, indeed, quite new. Here was 
a modern work, not inferior to the old : and when I observed the 
rich effect of the creamy Caen stone, contrasted with the dark 
and polished pillars of Purbeck marble, and marked the effective 
introduction of colours and gilding, amid the delicate foliations 
and tracery of stalls and tombs, then, first, I understood what 
must have been the magnificence of these cathedrals, when new 
and entire ! It was pleasing to see such proof that the Church 
is still instinct with all the spirit of mediaeval taste, under the 
influences of restored purity of religion ; and that all the < un- 
ning of Bezaleel can be still employed by our reformed ritual, 
though the craft of Demetrius, in making shrines for idolatrous 
services, is no longer required. 

I will not weary my reader with the numerous details of this 
glorious pile, nor with those of the Bishop’s palace, its moat and 
drawbridge ; nor yet with memories of the blessed Bishop Ken, 
which still linger in fragrance about these holy places : but I 
must observe, that the present Bishop has done a good work in 


AN ORDINATION. 


229 


restoring to his cathedral the important feature of a theological 
school. In his palace is their chapel, a most appropriate one ; 
and as I went through the cathedral, it was pleasant to see seve- 
ral students in their gowns, lingering here and there in the aisles, 
and vanishing and re-appearing amid the columns. 

A romantic drive from Wells, full of interesting views, brought 
me to Bath. Here, too, was much to see ; but its Abbey is a 
poor object after Wells, and the town of Beau Nash need not 
long detain an ecclesiastic. I left, in the night, for Berkshire ; 
and next day, which was Sunday, was present at an Ordination, 
held at Bradiield Church, by the Bishop of Oxford. The Church, 
and neighbouring College, at which I was a guest, are well 
worthy of description ; but I have only space to add, that the 
ceremonial of Ordination differed from our own only in the mi- 
nute particulars of the oath of supremacy, and in the Bishop’s 
sitting in his chair while administering the imposition of hands. 
Thirteen priests, and a larger number of deacons, were admitted 
to Orders. The preacher was the estimable Sir George Prevost ; 
and at Evening Prayer, I had the great satisfaction of addressing 
the newly ordained clergy, by appointment of the Bishop, and 
afterwards of dining with him, and them, at the College, where 
I am happy to testify that all things were done unto edifying, 
until the close of the day. I was charmed with the Bishop’s 
manner in private intercourse with his younger clergy ; and not 
less gratified to learn that the Ordination had been preceded by 
his personal conference with each individual, in which the awful 
responsibilities of the ministry had been freely enforced, and fully 
recognized. Those whom I had seen ordained, had come to that 
solemnity, therefore, with the fullest sense of its unspeakable con- 
sequences to their souls ; and, so far as could be ascertained, with 
holy resolutions to be faithful unto death. 

The solemnities of the Jubilee of the Venerable S. P. G., now 
called me back to London, and to a renewal of its social plea- 
sures. On the morning of the 16th of June, I attended, at. 
Westminster Abbey, with a large number of the clergy, the open- 
ing services. It was a memorable occasion ; the choir of the 
Abbey being filled with a dense crowd of worshippers, among 
whom, to judge by their looks and complexions, were men “out 
of every nation under heaven.” The Bishop of London was the 
preacher, and gave us an appropriate sermon, characterized by 
the finish for which his performances are noted, and not deficient 
in feeling or fervour. It contained gratifying allusions to the 


230 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


American Church, one of whose prelates, Bishop Otey, was pre- 
sent, in the sanctuary, and assisting in the services. A large 
number of communicants knelt at the altar ; and while several 
of my English friends made an effort to receive at the hands of 
the Bishop of Tennessee, in gratifying their feelings of Catholic in- 
tercommunion, I found an equal satisfaction in receiving the 
Holy Sacrament from the Archbishop of Canterbury. During 
the whole solemnity, which filled up several hours, my mind was 
powerfully impressed with the historical spirit of the place ; and 
while I listened to the sermon, glancing occasionally upward to 
the vaulted roof, or allowing my eye to wander away among the 
columns of the nave or choir, it was impossible to divest myself 
of associations the most sublime, that seemed to swarm around 
me, like “ a cloud of witnesses,” blending the interminable past 
with the momentary present. Here we were, in our turn, upon 
the stage, the great actors of past centuries lying all around us ! 
Through yonder gate, beneath the great rose-window, pomp and 
procession have entered this holy place, age after age ; and here, 
one after another, each as real in its time as that which occupies 
us now, have the great solemnities of the nation been celebrated. 
These arches and aisles looked just as they look this minute on 
the day when Laud ushered in King Charles to receive his crown, 
and when, just here, he was presented, to the Lords and Com- 
mons assisting at that pregnant moment, as their anointed 
Sovereign. The thought of all that has since passed on the same 
spot, seemed to compress into the mere drama of an hour, the 
mighty history of which such was the opening scene. Then the 
thought of the entire ignorance of futurity, by which such a 
pageant was made real in its time ! Imagination places us back 
among the men of a by-gone age ; but we cannot strip our individu- 
ality of its historic knowledge, and we behold their doings with 
the eyes of a seer. I seemed to be listening to the shout of 
“Long live King Charles” — and at the same moment foreseeing 
the scaffold at Whitehall. I seemed to wonder that others could 
be ignorant of what was coming : and to feel compelled to fore- 
warn the King of the dreadful future. Just so the jubilant coro 
nation of Charles the Second, and the melancholy inauguration 
of his successor, flitted before me, with the events of years con- 
densed into a moment: and then again I found myself going 
back to the days of Elizabeth and her hateful sire; and so 
mounting to the Plantagenets and Normans. It is said that we 
cannot think of two things at once : but certainly, while I was 


THE TUBILEE. 


231 


absorbed in the sermon, I was yet occupied with such thoughts 
as these, and, in fact, was giving the preacher the full benefit of 
all this as a background, while I looked on him as the prominent 
figure of the picture. The psalms for the day had been exceed- 
ingly suggestive and appropriate ; they were the Deus venerunt, 
the Qui regis Israel , and the Exultate Deo ; and all the while I was 
mentally contrasting 1851 with 1651, and saying, “ What hath 
God wrought !” That day, two hundred years ago, the Puritans 
were in the Abbey, making havoc of its holy things, and exulting 
over the annihilation of the Church of England. They supposed 
her exterminated, “ root and branch it was a felony to read one 
of her ancient Collects in the poorest cottage of the land. And 
now ! I was surrounded by representatives of her communion, 
who had come up to keep her one hundred and fiftieth missionary 
festival from the uttermost parts of the earth. Beside the Pri- 
mate of all England, stood before me the Bishops of Argyle, of 
Jamaica, and of Tennessee. Around me were kneeling Africans, 
Asiatics, and Americans, with the islanders of the South Seas, 
all partakers of her holy fellowship : and passing from such a 
past to such a present — what a leap my spirit took into the 
future. Another jubilee — and another ! Who shall set a limit 
to the ingathering of nations ; to the latter-day triumphs of the 
Gospel * 

“ Visions of Glory, spare my aching sight ; 

Ye unborn ages crowd not on my soul.” 

When the services were over, it took some time to emancipate 
myself from the spell of the place, and I wandered to and fro in 
the Abbey. A dear friend, a fellow of Oriel College, caught me 
by the hand, and pointed to the slab beneath my feet. It covered 
Samuel Johnson. “ Surely old Samuel’s bones must have been 
stirred to-day by the Church’s Jubilee,” said I, “ but don’t think 
you have shown me his grave for the first time ; I already know 
all the choice spots in this floor, and have knelt on that very 
slab, and given God thanks for his servant Samuel.” 

I dined that day with a party of zealous Churchmen, and sup- 
porters of the S. P. G. ; and, in the evening, went to an ecclesias- 
tical conversazione at Willis’ Rooms. We drove, in a private 
carriage, through Hyde Park and St. James’s, and were set down 
at “ Almack’s” as superbly as if we had come on as gay an 
errand as is the more usual one of its visitors. But those bril- 
liant rooms were now thronged with a graver company, the 


232 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


object of the festivity being to do honour to foreign ecclesiastics 
and pastors, who might be in London on occasion of the Jubilee 
and the Crystal Palace. I was presented to the Primate, who 
conversed with a simplicity of manner the most impressive, and 
invited me to Lambeth with a sort of cordiality, the very reverse 
of that stateliness and etiquette which it was not unnatural to 
expect in the address of one so exalted in station. I was much 
pleased with his venerable appearance, and accepted the kind 
appointment of an hour, which he named, for my visit to the 
Archiepiscopal palace, with peculiar pleasure. His Grace was 
surrounded by his brother Bishops, among whom I saw, for the 
. first time, the Archbishop of Dublin ; a prelate of acknowledged 
talent, but whose gifts would have better fitted the Academy than 
the throne of a Primate. An Oriental Archimandrite completed 
the group in this quarter ; and other parts of the rooms swarmed 
with solemn looking men, talking German and French with their 
English entertainers, or vainly essaying civilities in Low Dutch 
and Danish. One of these personages, who looked as if he 
might have figured, with credit to himself, at the Synod of Dort, 
attacked me in the dialect of the Flemings, to my utter conster- 
nation. I could only stammer out a little gibberish, as a reply, 
and precipitately sounded a retreat, in utter distrust of my ability 
to sustain a further conversation with my unknown colloquist to 
mutual satisfaction. I soon afterward made the acquaintance of 
the Chevalier Bunsen, with whom, as one of the curiosities of 
the age, I was not sorry to have this opportunity of exchanging 
a few words. The Chevalier is at home on every subject, and I 
found him communicative on the favourite topic which I ventur- 
ed to start, by referring to a common friend, whom he had known 
very well in Pome. One after another I encountered, during the 
evening, many eminent and agreeable personages, among whom 
were officers of the army, dignitaries of the Church, several 
Bishops, and the Earl of Harrowby. The company was alto- 
gether a brilliant one, in spite of the polemical figures who con- 
stituted so important a part of it ; and the stars and decorations 
of the nobility, and of foreign officials, were quite conspicuous, 
among the white neckerchiefs and black broadcloth of the eccle- 
siastics and pastors. 

I breakfasted, next morning, with the Rector of St. Martin’s 
in the Fields, and then accompanied him, on a visiting tour, about 
his parish. First, I went to the parish-school, which had lately 
been rebuilt, and was deemed a model. Prince Albert, who 


AN ANCIENT MAN. 


238 


interests himself in such things, was to visit it that very day, and 
I was kindly asked by the Rector to be of the company, but was 
otherwise engaged. One of the peculiarities of this building was 
its ingenious contrivance of a play-ground — if that may be so 
called, which was some fifty or sixty feet above the earth. Land 
being costly in the parish of St. Martin’s, the building was plan- 
ned with a double roof, the lower one being flat, and surrounded 
with a high fence, affording a safe and ample space for the recre- 
ation of the children ; while the roof above them served as an 
awning against the sun, or as a shelter from the rain. A fine 
view, and as pure an atmosphere as London can afford, were ad- 
ditional advantages of the arrangement. Next, we visited the 
parochial baths and wash-houses, in which the poor have the best 
opportunity for washing and drying clothes, and also of keeping 
their persons in a neat and wholesome condition, at the cost of a 
few pennies. The benevolence and utility of the establishment 
must be obvious. Next the Rector took me to see Coleman, one 
of his parishioners, who was then in his 102d year, and a fine 
and healthy-looking man at that. What is better, he is unfeign- 
edly pious, and joined devoutly in the prayers which were offered 
by his pastor, responding with fervour, and saying, in reply to 
one of his questions — “ I know that my Redeemer liveth.” This 
aged Christian owes his serene and consoling faith, under God, tc 
his early training in the charity school, established in this parish 
by Archbishop Tennison. He was a pupil in that school when 
George the Second died, and remembers the tolling of the great 
bell of St. Paul’s, to announce the event. He also remembers 
the Coronation of George the Third, and the procession, which 
he saw as it went to the Abbey, on that occasion. Think of his 
living to see, as he did, the procession of Victoria to the Crystal 
Palace, with the same pair of eyes ! It was gratifying to hear 
his testimony to the vast improvement in manners which has 
been going on in London since he was a boy. He remembers the 
nights and days which Hogarth has so frightfully depicted ; and 
he says, too truly, that to be a gentleman, was to be a rake, almost 
universally, when he was a boy. “ It was as much as one ’s 
life was worth,” he says, “ to walk the streets, at night, in those 
days.” The same day, I heard Mr. Sydney Herbert remark, in 
his speech at St. Martin’s Hall, that this age is reputed better 
than its antecessors, chiefly because, while it cares not what a man 
may be at heart, it compels him to be decent. 

This meeting at St. Martin’s Hall, by the way, must not be 


234 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


forgotten. It was part of the Jubilee. Prince Albert presided, 
and did so, I must allow, in a very princely style, so far as his 
personal bearing was concerned. As he entered, which he did 
with great dignity, the whole assembly rose, and sang God Save 
the Queen. This struck me as exceedingly handsome and appro- 
priate : but I was not so well pleased with the fulsome adulation 
with which some of the speakers, afterwards, seemed to think it 
necessary to bedaub him. He was himself guilty of a flagrant 
breach of propriety, as it struck me, in alluding to William of 
Orange, who happened to be on the throne when the Charter of 
the S. P. G. was signed and sealed, as “ the greatest sovereign who 
ever reigned in Great Britain.” To this ill-judged compliment to 
one of the foreign adventurers who have succeeded in planting 
themselves in British palaces, a few gaping mouths in the auditory 
ejaculated the response, “hear, hear” — for which the sentence 
was evidently a studied catch : but I am glad to say that the 
greater part of the assembly was not such as to be so entrapped. 
It was a failure, absolutely, though the Times reported “ great 
applause,” as a matter of course. When a prince condescends to 
set up for a critic upon royalty, he deserves no better success : 
and the ill taste of this particular attempt, on such an occasion, 
seemed to me offensive in the extreme. It is plain that the 
prince has learned his historical alphabet from Macaulay, and has 
studied no further : but I considered this straw as indicative of a 
coming wind, with which the founder of the House of Coburg should 
not have threatened the Church so soon. He may yet reap the whirl- 
wind himself, or bequeath it to his children : for it is evident, to me, 
that amiable and estimable as he is, in many respects, and beloved 
as he is by a loyal people as the consort of their Queen, he is an 
alien to true British feeling, and an enemy to the Anglican Church. 
He would Germanize the nation if possible ; above all, he longs 
to Bunsenize the national religion. 

On the whole, I found myself too much of an American 
Churchman to relish this meeting. It was humiliating to see the 
venerable Archbishop paying such deference to one who, though 
so nearly allied to the throne, is in no wise entitled to especial 
homage from so august a personage as the Primate of all Eng- 
land : and I considered it insufferable that such official personages 
as Lord John Russell, and Earl Grey, should be chief speakers, 
merely because of their position, although flagrant enemies of the 
Church’s holiest principles. A more turgid piece of bombast 
than the former delivered, I have never chanced to hear, and his 


LAMBETH. 


285 


v!sole appearance was, to me, ludicrously revolting. It must 
not be supposed, however, that the meeting went oil' without ef- 
fect. It was nobly redeemed by admirable speeches from Sydney 
Herbert, the Duke of Newcastle, Sir Robert Inglis, and the Earl 
of Harrowby, as well as from the Bishops of Oxford and Lon- 
don. Lord Harrowby, in particular, reflecting on the Walpoles 
and the Graftons of former ministerial epochs with just severity, 
gave Lord John some wise counsels, while apparently congratu- 
lating him on his widely different policy, in patronizing Missions ! 
Mr. Sydney Herbert was truly eloquent, and threw out several 
sparkling abstractions, which greatly raised my estimate of his 
mental power ; but the natural orator, among them all, was the 
Bishop of Oxford, whose delightful voice, pleading for the creation 
of a staff of native Missionaries in Africa, India, and China, in- 
fused a thrill of feeling through every heart, as he wound up with 
the scriptural example of those whose first transports, in receiving 
the Gospel, found vent in the expression — “We do hear them 
speak, in our tongues , the wonderful works of God.” 

As duly appointed, I waited on the Archbishop at Lambeth, 
and was received with very little ceremony, into his study, — a 
spacious apartment, plainly furnished, and overlooking the garden 
of the Palace. His manner was, as before, extremely simple and 
affable ; and he conversed upon divers ecclesiastical subjects with 
an appearance of zeal, and with a general tone of elevated 
churchmanship, for which he is certainly not celebrated as a Pri- 
mate. It was with the profoundest reverence that I listened to 
the successor of Augustine and of Cranmer ; and not without 
deference did I venture to express myself, in his presence, even 
on American subjects. As I rose to depart, he followed me to 
the door of the room, with something exceedingly winning and 
paternal in his farewell ; and kindly invited me to dine with him, 
on a day which he named, as the only one when he expected to 
be at home for some time. This pleasure I was forced to deny 
myself, owing to a previous engagement ; and I accordingly con- 
cluded my visit to Lambeth, at this time, by going the usual 
rounds in company with an official, to whom His Grace commit- 
ted me. My readers may well imagine my emotions in surveying 
the Lollard’s Tower, the gallery of historic portraits, the library, 
and other apartments, of this most interesting pile ; but perhaps 
they might not wholly appreciate the feelings with which I knelt 
in the chapel, and returned thanks for our American Episcopacy, 
on the spot where it was imparted to the saintly White. I lin- 


236 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


gered, for a long time, in the gardens, thinking of Laud, of Juxon, 
and of Sancroft ; and dwelling, with peculiar gratification in my 
imagination, upon the scenes between Laud and “ Mr. Hyde;” of 
which these gardens were the witness, as mentioned in the pic 
tured pages of Clarendon. 

The solemn octave of the Jubilee included Sunday the 22d of 
June, on which day special sermons were preached in many pul- 
pits, in London, and collections made in behalf of the Society. I 
received an appointment to preach at Bow Church, and accord- 
ingly did so, taking as a text Genesis ix. 27, and endeavouring to 
show that the existence of our own Church, in the Western 
World, is a fulfilment of the prophecy, “ God shall enlarge 
Japhet, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem.” But a greater 
privilege awaited me in the evening of the same day, when it was 
my happy lot to perform a similar duty, in the Temple Church, 
standing in Hooker’s pulpit, and preaching to a congregation of 
the highest intelligence and character, upon the spread of the 
Church in America. It was a fine afternoon, and that glorious 
Church was filled with such an assembly as I had never before 
seen gathered together on an occasion of ordinary worship. Be- 
sides the Bishops of Winchester and Edinburgh, who happened 
to be present, with the Master of the Temple, and other clergy, 
the benchers were numerously represented, and the finest legal 
talent of the empire was undoubtedly there collected. To 
judge by the large attendance of ladies, (some of them of the 
highest rank,) the Templars were also accompanied by their fami- 
lies : to whom, I suppose, the music furnishes a powerful attrac- 
tion, as it is justly celebrated ; and the organ, though selected 
two hundred years ago, by the critical ear of the bloody Judge 
Jeffreys, is of a tone proverbially sweet. The attendance of 
strangers, drawn together by the same attraction, was also very 
large, the round church as well as the choir, being apparently 
filled. I was much moved by the anthem — “ Tell it out among 
the heathen that the Lord is King” — and when it was time for 
me to ascend the pulpit, and to preach to such an Areopagus, it 
may be imagined that it was not without feelings of emotion, 
such as I had never before experienced in the performance of my 
official duties. That old historic spot, where Hooker had strug- 
gled to preserve the falling Church of a single kingdom, was now 
occupied by my pilgrim feet ; and coming from a new world, I 
was to attest, before such an assembly, and in the presence of 
God, the blessings which that noble struggle had secured, not to 


SAMUEL WARREN. 


237 


England only, but through her to the wilds of America, and to 
the unborn generations of a new and mighty people in another 
hemisphere. The text was the prophecy of David, (Psalm xlv. 
17,) “ Instead of thy fathers thou shalt have children, whom thou 
mayest make princes in all lands:” and it was my effort, (as I 
trust I may say, without too free a personal confession) to im- 
prove so interesting an opportunity, in commending my country 
to the respect of those who heard me, while confessing the just 
claims upon her gratitude, of the Mother land, from which she is 
proud to derive the blessings of the Gospel, and the institutions 
of enlightened freedom, guarded by the supremacy of law. After 
service, the Master of the Temple, taking me into his adjoining 
residence, showed me a table which once belonged to his great 
predecessor, Hooker, and allowed me to sit down in Hooker’s 
chair. He also showed me some memorials of Bishop Heber, 
whose missionary labours in India he had assisted, as his chaplain. 
The evening was passed under the domestic roof of Dr. Warren, 
the eminent bencher, whose remarkable production, “ Ten thou- 
sand a-year,” has added to his other distinctions, that of reform- 
ing the romance literature of the age, and of introducing a tone 
of high Christian morality, in place of that fashionable depravity 
which Bulwer had caught from Byron, and substituted for the 
decent propriety of Scott. To his polite hospitalities I was in- 
debted for some of my happiest hours in London : and the con- 
clusion of this Holy Day was rendered memorable by many 
warm expressions of regard for my country and her Church, in- 
spired by his conversation, in the genial society of his family and 
friends. 



CHAPTER XXYIII. 


Lord Mayor's Banquet — Eton College — Hampton . 

The Jubilee festival at Westminster Abbey was not allowed 
to supersede the annual sermon at St. Paul’s ; and accordingly, 
on the 18th of June, I attended the service in the cathedral, and 
heard the Bishop of St. Asaph. The service was performed with 
the aid of a all the choicest music of the kingdom,” for the choirs 
of the royal palaces of Windsor and St. James’s were added, on 
this occasion, to the ordinary musical force of the cathedral, 
with very great effect. The clergy, with the Bishops, entered 
in procession through the nave, and the Lord Mayor in robes, 
and with the civic sword borne before him, figured in the pageant, 
and occupied his stall. The sermon was scarcely audible where 
I sat, within the rails of the sanctuary, but it seemed to be ear- 
nestly delivered. Then came the Hallelujah Chorus — which I 
certainly never before heard so impressively performed. “ And 
He shall reign for ever and ever — King of kings, and Lord of 
lords !” The reverberations of the dome, and the long resound- 
ing echoes of those noble aisles prolonged the strain, and made it 
like the voice of many waters in the new Jerusalem. 

It was Waterloo-day ; and, while the Duke was supposed to 
be feasting his friends at Apsley House, the Lord Mayor, at the 
Mansion-house, gave a city feast to the Clergy of London, with 
others, among whom I had the honour of being numbered. It 
was, in fact, a dinner given to the S. P. G., in honour of its 
Jubilee; and I owed my invitation to the kind offices of the 
Bishop of Oxford. The Mansion-house is the official residence 
of the Lord Mayor, and it is a conspicuous object in Lombard- 
street, near the Bank of England. On arriving, we were shown 
into an ante-room, where the Lord Mayor received us, and we 


THE MANSION HOUSE. 


239 


were presented to the Lady Mayoress. The room was filled with 
company, and here I met several distinguished personages whom 
I had not seen before. I was particularly pleased with being 
introduced, by Dean Milman, to Dr. Croly, for whose genius 
and productions I have a high regard. The dinner was served in 
the Egyptian Hall, so called from its original resemblance to a 
hall described by Vitruvius. It is a spacious banquet-room, and 
looks very well when lighted, although destitute of such specimens 
of art as would best furnish its nudity of wall, and its many 
“ coignes of vantage.” The chief table crossed the hall at one 
end, and at right angles with this, four long tables stretched 
through the apartment. The Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress 
sat in state at the head, the former wearing his glittering collar 
and jewel, as well as his robes, with the city mace, sword, and 
other splendid insignia displayed before him. The Archbishop, 
with the Bishops, were seated on his right and left, dressed in 
their silk gowns and cassocks, in which costume all the clergy pre- 
sent were attired. The ladies made a very superb appearance, and 
I should suppose the whole company numbered about two hundred 
persons. The display of plate, and the general show of splendour, 
was sumptuous, in all respects, answering to one’s ideas of a Lord 
Mayor’s feast. An old-fashioned civic custom, moreover, was 
observed with a certain degree of punctilio, which, while highly be- 
coming, was yet to me highly amusing, and made me feel, all the 
time, as if I were dining with the great Whittington himself, 
especially when his Lordship sent me a glass, and invited me to 
the high honour of drinking with him. The mayor of such a 
metropolis is, indeed, for the time, a right worshipful personage, 
and in the then incumbent I saw before me a most pleasing re- 
presentive of the magistracy of the greatest capital of Christen- 
dom. He is attended with a degree of state quite worthy of a 
sovereign. It was odd, I must own, to see his chaplain come 
forward, in the style described by the cynical Macaulay, and, 
after saying grace, retire. So, too, the presence of his post-boy, 
in flaming jacket and short-clothes, and glittering cap, with many 
other servants, in showy and old-fashioned liveries, gave an an- 
tique appearance to the magnificence of the scene. The dinner 
was served with like attention to ancient ceremonies, soup, 
venison, comfits and all. Before the dessert, instead of finger- 
glasses, golden ewers were borne about, filled with rose-water, 
and thus every body performed his abstersion most fragrantly. 
At the head of each table was then set an enormous golden 


240 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


chalice, with a cover curiously wrought, the Lord Mayor hav- 
ing a still more magnificent one placed before him. What next? 
The toast-master appeared behind his lordship’s chair, and be- 
gan — “ My Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, my Lord Bishop of 
London ” — and so on through the roll of Bishops — “ my Lords, 
Ladies and gentlemen ! the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress 
greet you in a loving cup, and give you a hearty welcome.” 
The Mayor and Mayoress then rose, and taking the loving cup 
in hand, she uncovered it for him, with a graceful courtesy, to 
which he returned a bow, and then drank, wiped the chalice 
with his napkin, allowed it to be covered, and then sat down, 
while the lady, turning to the Archbishop, who rose accordingly, 
repeated the ceremony, save that he uncovered the cup, and it 
was her turn to taste the draught. Thus the cup went round. 
It was my duty to begin the rite at the table at which I sat, 
and happily I received the kindest instructions beforehand from 
my partner, so that I did my duty well enough for a novice : but 
a more beautiful ceremony, as the pairs successively rose and sat, 
along the splendid room, I never beheld. I thought of Vortigern 
and Rowena: but the origin of the custom is said to have been 
even before the days — 

When they carved at the meal 

In their gloves of steel, 

And drank the red wine thro’ tho helmet barr’d ; 

and when, as one lifted his arm to drink, it was deemed a neces- 
sary precaution that one should stand up to guard him from a 
fifth-rib. With less ceremony, the custom still obtains in the 
halls of Oxford ; but where the ladies take a part in it, it is cer- 
tainly a most graceful embellishment of feasting. 

Instead of the usual grace after meat, a party of male and fe 
male singers appeared at the foot of the hall, and reverently sang 
a little hymn, all the company rising. His Lordship then in- 
formed the company that “ on occasion of receiving his friends 
at the Mansion-house, it was his privilege to dispense with all 
rules save those which governed the ancient entertainments of 
the city of London, one of which enabled him to request the 
ladies to remain at the table, and to hope for the continued 
honour of their company during the evening.” After this velvety 
preface, he pronounced the first toast, with a similar softness, 
and then the toast-master shouted — “ My lords, ladies and gentle- 
men, the Lord Mayor has given the Queen.” All rose, and 


AN OLD CUSTOM. 


241 


drank loyally, and then came “ God save the Queen,” which was 
heartily sung. “Please to charge your glasses for the next 
toast,” was the perpetual cry of the toast-master for the next 
hour, and always the toast was announced with like formality, 
the speeches and the music, that followed, being all that could 
be desired. The venerable Archbishop, whose wig gave him a 
reverend air of the last century, was peculiarly happy in replying 
to the usual compliments to their right reverend lordships, who 
all stood while he spoke in their name. The Bishop of Win- 
chester, his younger brother, who wore his jewel as prelate of the 
order of the Garter, made a very fine appearance. The Bishop of 
Oxford also wore his decoration as chancellor of that order ; and I 
observed that, on such occasions, he always wore it with the 
rosette face displayed, while, in divine service, over his Episco- 
pal costume, the other face was exhibited; and very appropriate- 
ly, as it consists of a pearl ground, with a simple cross, as in an 
armorial shield. A trifling fact ! and yet where one is closely 
observing the peculiarities of a Church, thus intimately working 
in with all the civil and social institutions of a mighty empire, the 
man is a fool who would not be willing to note it. It is with a 
view to a just delineation of these workings, as they are, that I 
often refer to incidents, of little account in themselves. This 
dinner at the Mansion-house was especially noteworthy, as con- 
trasted with the spirit of a civic banquet in our own great towns ; 
and I must own, that if it be desirable that the genius of Chris- 
tianity should interpenetrate, and transfuse all the forms of civi- 
lized life, the contrast is not in our favour. 

The entertainment concluded at a comparatively early hour ; 
and then I drove to another, at the residence of the estimable Miss 
Burdett Coutts, in Piccadilly. Here, among other celebrated men, 
in the most brilliant party I ever saw, I first met Lord Nelson ; 
and yet again next morning, I met him, before breakfast, attend- 
ing the daily service at Curzon chapel. The week passed de- 
lightfully, in frequent social festivities; and I cannot but par- 
ticularize a pleasant breakfast party at Mr. Beresford Hope’s — - 
and one of those admirably contrived ones, at Sir Robert Inglis’, 
in which everybody is so sure to meet with everybody and every 
thing that is agreeable. On another occasion, at his table, I 
sat next to Lord Glenelg, and ventured to engage him in con- 
versation on the subject of the hymns of his brother, the late Sir 
Robert Grant, which are so prominent in our Church Collection, 
alike for their scholarly and refined taste, and their devotional 

11 


24:2 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


fervor. He seemed pleased to learn of the value set upon them 
in America ; and soon after, on returning to my lodgings. I found 
upon my table, as a present from his lordship, a beautiful copy 
of his brother’s poems, which I shall always highly value. 

During the week, I went up to Eton — the place of places, 
which I had longed to see, and where I was now invited to visit 
an enthusiastic Etonian. This excursion involved, of course, a 
visit to Windsor, whose imperial towers so magnificently over- 
shadow the nest of the choicest progeny of England. Never did 
I receive such ideas of the moral grandeur of the British Con- 
stitution, as comprehending Church, State and Society, as, when, 
from the fields of Eton College, I surveyed the unparalleled 
abode of the British sovereign; and then, from the terrace of 
the castle, looked back upon that nursery of British youth; its 
studious halls, its venerable chapel, it3 ample fields for sport, and 
the crystal waters of the Thames, flowing between ; fit emblem 
of joyous youth, passing on to the burthen of the world and the 
ocean of eternity. 

When Gray looked from that terrace, over the same scene, 
and conceived his incomparable Ode, he said all that one ought 
to say, and I will attempt no more. One question, however, 
which he could only ask, it is reserved for us to answer. 

Who foremost now delight to cleave, 

With pliant arm thy glassy wave, &c. ? 

Among the boys whom he then saw running and swimming, and 
driving hoop and playing cricket, in the old familiar scene, was 
he who afterwards conquered Napoleon. I saw the name of 
Wellesley, with those of Fox and others as celebrated, carved 
in the college oak. There, too, were the busts of Hammond and 
Pearson, and of Gray himself. The famous men of Eton seemed 
to be around me in legions. Who could not catch manliness 
and might amid such associations'? All day I loitered about those 
meads, and towards evening went upon the Thames with a merry 
party, to see a juvenile boat race, in the Oxford fashion. Oh, 
the sport of those happy boys ! One boat swamped, but the little 
fellows swam lustily to shore, and ran home laughing. It was the 
fragrant hay-time. Every prospect — every breeze was pleasing. As 
the boats hurried by, and those patrician lads pulled away at their 
oars, like day-labourers, I saw how the mind and muscles are 
alike developed at Eton. How can the body be feeble, that is 
reared with such lusty exercise : how can the mind but conceive 


TOMB OF CHARLES I. 


243 


high thoughts, that pursues its very sports with “ those antique 
towers” on one hand, and that stupendous castle, lifting its 
gigantic bulk, and stretching its majestic walls, upon the other? 
The boys look upon the right, and there sages, patriots, heroes, 
priests and princes have been bred : they turn to the left, and 
there their Sovereign lives in august retirement; her imperial 
banner waves above the keep ; and beneath that solemn chapel 
sleeps the Royal Martyr, and the dust of mighty kings, whose 
names are the material of history. 

I made the usual circuit of the castle ; but with the details 
which every guide-book furnishes, I would not fatigue my 
readers. For the mere show of royal furniture, my mind could 
find little room ; and mere State-apartments, as such, were even 
a distasteful sight. But the noble architecture, and unrivalled 
site of the castle ; its histories, and the charm which association 
gives to every tower and window, and to the whole scene with 
which it fills the eye — these are the sublime elements with which 
Windsor inspires the soul, and impregns the imagination. Hoc fecit 
Wykeham — is the inscription one catches, deep cut in the wall 
of one of the towers: an equivoque which the ambitious architect 
is said to have interpreted, as implying that the work was the mak- 
ing of him , when asked by his royal patron how he dared to 
claim the castle as a creation, and turn it into a memorial of 
himself. But who can appropriate Windsor? The humble poet, 
by a single song, has taken its terrace to himself; and every 
stone, and every timber, might bear some appropriate and speak- 
ing legend. I thought chiefly of Charles the First. How he 
loved this castle ! How he would have adorned it, and what a 
home of Worth and genius he would have made it, had he not 
fallen on evil times! That truly English heart beat warmly 
here, a few weeks before it ceased to beat forever ; and along this 
esplanade was borne his bleeding body, (on which fell the sym- 
bolic snow of a passing cloud,) to its last sublime repose. “ So 
went the white king to his rest,” says a quaint historian : and 
when, at Evening Prayer in St. George’s chapel, I reflected that 
his solemn relics were underneath, I felt a reviving affection for 
his memory, almost like that of personal love. The dying sun- 
beams gilded the carvings of the sanctuary and the banners of 
the knights ; I sat in one of the stalls near the altar, and observed 
near me the motto — ccelum non animum mutant qui irons mare cur- 
runt. When at length the anthem swelled through the gorgeous 
chapel — Awake up my glory — I could not but respond, inwardly, 


244 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


that it was meet that the glory of God should be thus perpetual- 
ly uplifted in the palace of a Sovereign, whom he has so magnified 
in the earth. And to which of her Sovereigns does England 
owe it, that she is not now either a cracked Commonwealth, 
without God and without government, or else an iron despotism, 
in the grasp of a successful usurper ? He who sleeps under that 
chapel said that he died “ a martyr for the people:” and so he did. 
On the principle by which Macaulay attributes the liberties of 
England to her Cromwells, we might attribute salvation to Judas 
and Pontius Pilate. 

In the twilight I returned to Eton, and went and mused in 
the chapel, after searching out the slab that covers Sir Henry 
Wotton. Then to one of the Dames' houses, (a tasteful abode,) 
where several oppidans were domiciled, with whom I attended 
family prayers. These oppidans are the day-scholars of Eton: 
having no rooms in the college, and sharing none of its funds. 
They are the greater part of the Etonians, the sons of gentlemen 
and of the nobility, who, of course, do not require the scholar- 
ships. After a sweet sleep, interrupted by hearing the clock strike 
and the chimes playing at Windsor, I rose to another delightful 
day, and soon after breakfast attended the service in the chapel. 
Five hundred and fifty boys were here gathered as worshippers. 
The service was an hour long, it being the Anniversary of the 
Queen’s Accession. Yet, for the whole time, did those youths 
maintain the decorum of gentlemen, and worship with the fervor 
of Christians. This reverence in worship is said to have greatly 
increased during late years among the Eton boys, many of whom 
are communicants. It speaks well for their homes, as well as 
for their college. What promise for the future of the Empire ! 

In short, the boys of Eton seem to study well, to play well, to 
fare well, to sleep well, to pray well. It was a holiday, and I 
went into the grounds to see the cricket match: I visited the 
library, the boys’ rooms, and the halls. It is a literal fact, that 
they still revere their “Henry’s holy shade;” for pictures of 
“ the meek usurper,” are to be found in almost every chamber. 
Last of all, I went to the river with an Etonian friend, stripped, 
and plunged in. I could not leave that spot without a swim ; 
and accordingly, after a struggle with father Thames, I emerged, 
and soon after left Eton in a glow of genial warmth and lively 
enthusiasm. If “ manners maketh man,” Eton cannot fail to be 
the nursery of great men, so long as it is true to itself and to the 
Church of God. 


HAMPTON COURT. 


245 


My next visit was to Hampton Court, for which I found a 
day quite insufficient, when reduced to the actual hours which 
one is permitted to devote to the survey of such a wilderness 
of natural and artificial charms, and to the enjoyment of their 
historical interest. In the grounds of the palace, and in Bushy 
Park, I found a formal grandeur, so entirely becoming a past 
age, and so unusual in this, that it impressed me with feelings of 
melancholy the most profound. Those avenues of chestnuts and 
thorns, those massive colonnades and dreamy vistas, wear a 
desolate and dreary aspect of by-gone glory, in view of which 
my spirits could not rise. They seemed only a fit haunt for airy 
echoes, repeating an eternal Where? Nothing later than the 
days of Queen Anne seems to belong to the spot. You pass 
from scenes in which you cannot but imagine Pope conceiv- 
ing, for the first time, his “ Pape of the Lock,” into a more trim 
and formal spot, where William of Orange seems likely to appear 
before you, with Bishop Burnet buzzing about him, and a Dutch 
guard following in the rear. Then again, James the Second, 
with the Pope’s nuncio at his elbow, and a coarse mistress flaunt- 
ing at his side, might seem to promise an immediate apparition ; 
when once more the scene changes, and the brutal Cromwell 
is the only character who can be imagined in the forlorn area, 
with a file of musketeers in the back-ground, descried through 
a shadowy archway. Here is a lordly chamber where the medi- 
tative Charles may be conceived as startled by the echo of their 
tread; and here another, where he embraces, for the last time, 
his beloved children. There, at last, is Wolsey’s Hall, and here 
one seems to behold old Blue-beard leading forth Anne Boleyn 
to a dance. It still retains its ancient appearance, and is hung 
with mouldering tapestry and faded banners, although its gild- 
ing and colors have been lately renewed. The ancient devices 
of the Tudors are seen here and there, in windows and tracery, 
and the cardinal’s hat of the proud churchman, who projected 
the splendors of the place, still survives, in glass, whose brit- 
tle beauty has thus proved less perishable than his worldly glory. 

Yet let no one suppose the magnificence of Hampton Court 
to consist in its architecture. One half is the mere copy of St. 
James’s, and the other is the stupid novelty of Dutch William. 
The whole together, with its parks, and with its history, is what 
one feels and admires. I am not sure but Koyal Jamie, with 
his Bishops and his Puritans on either side was as often 
before me, when traversing the pile, as anything else: and for 


246 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


him and his Conference the place seems fit enough, having 
something of Holyrood about it, and something Scholastic, or 
collegiate, also. Queen Victoria should give it to the Church, 
as a college for the poor, and so add dignity to her benevolence, 
which has already turned it into a show for the darling “ lower 
classes.” I honour the Queen for this condescension to the peo- 
ple; and yet, as I followed troops of John Gilpins through the 
old apartments, and observed their inanimate stare, and booby 
admiration, it did strike me that a nobler and a larger benefit 
might be conferred upon them, in a less incongruous way. 
Perhaps the happiest thought would be to make it for the clergy 
just what Chelsea is to the army, and Greenwich to the naval 
service. 

Among the interminable pictures of these apartments, some 
most precious, and some execrable, the original Cartoons of Ra- 
faelle of course arrest the most serious and reverent attention. 
There hang those bits of paper, slightly colored, but distinctly 
crayoned and chalked, on which his immortal genius exhausted 
its finest inspiration ! Who knows not, by heart, the Lame Man 
at the Beautiful Gate, St. Paul Preaching at Athens, the Sacri- 
fice at Lystra, and Elymas struck blind? These are the auto- 
graphs of those sublime works; and the Vatican itself may envy 
their possession to Hampton Court. But, beyond their antiqua- 
rian interest, I must own they have not for me the attractiveness 
of a beautiful copy : it would be a fine thing to own Shakspeare’s 
autograph of Hamlet, but who would not rather read and study 
the play in the clear type and paper of a modern edition ? Next 
to the Cartoons, I found most interesting the old historic canvas 
of Holbein, with its paste-board figures; and after that, the in- 
tensely significant series, which may be picked out, from room to 
room, as displaying the spirit of English reigns. Look at that 
glorious Van Dyck! How the rich romance of the Cavaliers 
invests its mellow lights and melancholy shades! There the 
voluptuous age of the Restoration swims before the eye in the 
dreamy coloring of Lely. See how old Kneller hardens every 
tint, and stiffens every line, as he essays to paint for William of 
Orange! Then comes Reynolds, throwing a hectic brilliancy 
over the starched figures and unyielding features of the Georgian 
age; and last of all West, with his brick-dust Hanoverians, sur- 
rending art itself a prisoner to the intolerable prose and incura- 
ble beer-drinking of his times ! Here and there I found a Law- 
rence, instinct with the spirit of a happy revival, and giving pro- 


THE POET KEBLE. 


247 


mise of better things to come. The collections are also rich in 
specimens of Flemish and Italian art; and warmed me with a 
desire hardly felt before in England, to be off on a contemplated 
tour of the Continent. 

On my way to Winchester, I was led to stop for an hour at 
Basing-stoke, by an idle curiosity to behold a place in which 
some of my forefathers once resided. It gave me an opportunity 
of visiting the tomb of the elder Warton, close by the altar of 
the parish Church. From Winchester I went by post, in the 
twilight, over downs, and through dingles and dales, to Hursley, 
where I entered the Church, and found Mr. Keble and his curate 
celebrating Evening Prayers. I had brought with me, from 
Hampton Court, a feeling of overpowering depression, and hav- 
ing seen the admired poet in circumstances so fitting to his char- 
acter as a Christian priest, I was about to turn away, and drive 
back to Winchester, when another impulse suddenly prevailed, 
and I ventured to present myself. I had a preconception of his 
piety and unworldliness, that affected me with awe, and embar- 
rassed me, in approaching him ; nor did anything in his cordiality 
divest hinl of something that restrained me in his presence. 
Nothing could be more simple and unaffected than his manner; 
and yet, in a word, it was as if George Herbert had risen from 
his grave, and were talking with me, in a familiar way. He 
would not hear of my departure, but instantly made me his guest ; 
and thenceforth I was in a dream, from the time that I first saw 
him till I bade him farewell. Nothing could be more kind than 
his hospitality; nothing more delightful than the vision on which 
I opened my eyes, in the morning, and looked out on his Church, 
and the little hamlet contiguous. Hursley is a true poet’s home. 
It is as secluded as can well be imagined. England might ring 
with alarms, and Hursley would not hear it : and it seems all the 
more lonely, when one learns that Richard Cromwell retired 
hither, from a throne, and after waxing old in a quiet content- 
ment, died here in peace, and now sleeps beneath the tower of 
the Church, just under the vicar’s windows, with all the cousinry 
of the Cromwells around him. A wise fool was Richard ! But 
to think of a Cromwell lying still, in such a Church as Mr. Keble 
has made this of Hursley ! It has been lately rebuilt, from the 
foundation, all but the tower, and its symbolism and decoration are 
very rich, though far from being overdone. The taste that has en- 
shrined itself in “the Christian Year,” has here taken shape in 
stones. One of the windows, the gift of friends, is an epitome of that 


248 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


delightful work, and displays the chief festivals, beginning with 
the Circumcision. In the minute adornment of the corbels, my 
attention was called to a beautiful idea, which runs through the 
whole series, and which is said to furnish the hint for interpret- 
ing the ornaments of older churches. Entering the south porch, 
you observe the sculptured heads of the reigning sovereign and 
the present bishop of the See ; and then, at the door, those of 
St. Helena, and St. Augustine of Canterbury. At the chancel 
arch are St. Peter and St. Paul ; and over the altar, beneath the 
arch of the East window, are the figures of our Lord, and of His 
Virgin Mother. Thus, from the present, the mind is carried on 
to the past; and from pastors and rulers, through doctors and 
apostles, up to Christ. The north porch exhibits the heads of 
Ken and Andrewes, of Wykeham and Fox; while the corbels of 
the exterior arch of the east window, bear those of Ambrose and 
Athanasius. The tower of the Church is finished by a graceful 
spire, and the gilded cock surmounts the pile — 

“ to tell 

How, when Apostles ceased to pray, they fell.” 

A grateful feeling comes over me at every remembrance of my 
visit to Hursley, for I felt all the time like an intruder, receiving 
privileges beyond my power to repay, while my kind entertainer 
seemed as one who desires no such tribute to his genius as mere 
tourists are wont to afford. An inferior character might be flat- 
tered to find himself sought out, of every traveller ; but all the 
heartfelt kindness of the vicar of Hursley was no disguise, to 
me, of a spirit that loves the Paradise of a blessed seclusion from 
the world, and which nothing but benevolence can prompt to 
welcome the stranger, that desires to see him face to face, and to 
thank him for the soothing influences and inspiring harmonies of 
his perennial songs. 

At Winchester, there are three great sights, besides several of 
minor interest : the hospital of St. Cross, the college of Wyke 
ham, and the cathedral. Let me first speak of the school, a sort 
of Eton, but less aristocratic, and certainly far less attractive in 
its site and circumstances. It glories, nevertheless, in its founder, 
and in his fellow-architect, Waynflete, and in many eminent 
names in Church and State. Enough that it bred Bishop Ken ; 
and that his initials may be found, cut with his boyish hand, in 
the stone of the cloisters. In the chapel, what chiefly arrests the 
eye, is the gorgeous window, with its genealogy of the Saviour, 


ST. CROSS HOSPITAL. 


249 


displayed in the richest colours and designs. The library, within 
the area of the cloisters, was an ancient chantry, designed for 
masses for the dead in the surrounding graves: and, I confess, I 
wish it were still a chapel, in which prayers might be offered, and 
the dead in Christ commemorated, although not as aforetime. 
Without particularly describing the hall, or refectory, I must not 
omit to mention the time-honoured Hircocervus , or picture of u the 
Trusty-servant,” which hangs near the kitchen, and which em- 
blematically sets forth those virtues in domestics, of which we 
Americans know nothing. It is a figure, part man, part porker, 
part deer, and part donkey ; with a padlock on his mouth, and 
various other symbols in his hands and about his person, the 
whole signifying a most valuable character. This for the college 
menials ; but the boys also are made to remember by it, that, for 
a time, “ they differ nothing from a servant, though they be lords 
of all.” In the lofty school-room, they are further taught, in 
symbols, the Medo-Persian character of the laws of the school. 
A mitre and crosier are displayed as the rewards of scholarship 
and fidelity ; an ink-horn and a sword intimate that a blotting- 
out and cutting-off await the incorrigible ; while a scourge sug- 
gests the only remedy, known to the school, short of the final 
penalty. Under these salutary emblems, the Wykeham boys of 
many generations have read and pondered the legends, which 
explain them severally, thus — Aut disce — aut discede — manet sors 
tertia ccedi ! Tables of the college laws are set up with like pub- 
licity, after the manner of the Decemvirs. It is evident that the 
Wykehamists are in no danger of forgetting that “ manners mak- 
eth men.” 

Through a pleasant meadow, and by a clear stream, I made 
my way to the hospital of St. Cross, founded by Bishop De Blois 
seven hundred years ago : yet, in conformity with the will of that 
prelate, when I knocked at the porter’s lodge, I was duly pre- 
sented with a slice of bread ( and a horn of wholesome beer, which 
I was just then quite thankful to receive, and to despatch in 
honour of his memory. To such a dole is everybody entitled 
who applies in the same manner : and a larger charity is, at stated 
times, distributed at the same place, to the neighbouring poor. 
The establishment to which I was admitted, after such an intro- 
duction, is one of the most interesting objects I ever saw. Its 
old courts and halls reminded me not a little of Haddon ; a pair 
of leathern pitchers were shown me, as vessels which once held 
ale for Cardinal Beaufort : but its chapel is indeed a relic of sur- 

11 * 


250 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


passing interest. It is built in cathedral form, and combines both 
Saxon and Norman details, with the first formal step towards the 
pointed arch. From the intersection of two of its circular 
arches, according to some, sprang Salisbury cathedral — the whole 
idea, from crypt to the vanishing point of its spire. And from 
this last remnant of conventual life, why should not the true 
idea of such establishments be in a similar manner revived 
throughout Christendom ? Here live some dozen poor and aged 
men, who else would have no home on this side heaven. Each 
wears a flowing garment of black, with a silver cross shining on 
its cape : they call one another brother ; they study to be quiet ; 
prayer is their only business; and order and neatness reign 
throughout the holy place. No one can visit St. Cross without 
praying that the Church of England may be blessed with hun- 
dreds more of just such homes for aged poverty, and that wher- 
ever wealth abounds in her communion, it may be devoted to 
erecting them. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


Winchester Cathedral — Relics — Netley Abbey. 

In Winchester Cathedral I attended Morning Service, on the 
feast of St. John Baptist. I am sorry to say that here, too, the 
service is ill-performed ; not that there is nothing to enjoy in 
it, even now: but that when one reflects what ought to be the 
daily worship of such a cathedral, and what it might be, if the 
laws of the cathedral were enforced, and if a holy zeal were more 
characteristic of its dignitaries : there is nothing to say but — 
shame on things as they are. When will the conscience of Eng- 
land clamour against such disgraceful poverty of cathedral wor- 
ship ; and when will the brain of England wake up to a sense of 
what these churches might do for the nation, if rightly served 
and administered ? The feature of this cathedral which most 
impresses the stranger, is its far-sweeping length of nave and 
choir, with the light or shadowy vistas, through columns and 
arches, which seem to multiply its interminable effect. In its de- 
tails it is also very rich, and several of its monuments are of un- 
equalled magnificence. Here lies, in his superb chantry, William 
of Wykeham, whose mitred and crosiered effigy, stretched at full 
length upon his sepulchre, seems sublimely conscious of repose, 
after a life of vast achievement, in rearing schools for youth, and 
colleges for the learned,, and palaces for princes, and hospitals for 
the poor, and temples for God. Bishop Wayneflete is not less 
superbly sepulchred in a small chapel, or chantry, of elegant de- 
sign, beautifully enriched, and gilded, and kept in complete 
repair by the Fellows of his College, at Oxford. His effigy bears, 
in clasped hands, a heart, which he thus uplifts to heaven, as it 
were, in fervent response to the Sursum Cor da of the liturgy. 
Over against this chantry rises, in twin magnificence, that of Car- 


252 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


dinal Beaufort : but in spite of its placid air, beneath those 
solemn tabernacles one looks upon his figure with painful remem- 
brances of the death-scene which Shakspeare has so powerfully 
depicted. “ He dies and makes no sign,” is the awful thought 
that haunts the mind, as one lingers about this perpetual death- 
bed ; and yet it is not difficult to conclude the inspection with the 
more charitable ejaculation of King Henry — 

“ Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all. 

Close up his eyes, and draw the curtain close, 

And let us all to meditation.” 

But Bishop Fox’s monument and chapel are even more affect- 
ing than any of these, from its peculiar combination of ingenious 
sepulchral devices, with elaborate graces of architecture. It is 
overpowering, after examining the splendours of its canopy and 
fretwork, to descend to the little grated recess beneath, where the 
subject of all this monumental glory is represented in the humilia- 
tion of death and the grave. It seems like looking into Hades. 
One sees a ghastly figure of emaciation and decay ; the eyes lying 
deep in their sockets, in a frightful stage of decomposition, and 
the whole frame exhibiting the power of death over the flesh of 
the Saints, but suggesting that, while patiently submitting to the 
worst that worms can do, it rests in hope and speaks out of the 
very grave — “ I know that my Redeemer liveth.” In a corres- 
ponding chapel, but of low architectural character, on the other 
side of the choir, lies the cruel Stephen Gardiner, the unfortu- 
nate son of an adulterous Bishop, and the fitting purveyor of fire 
and faggot to the Bloody Mary. The nuptials of this sulphurous 
sovereign with Philip of Spain, were celebrated, by-the-way, in 
the Lady-Chapel of this cathedral. Strange that the same 
Church which entombs her favourite Gardiner, should also con 
tain the sepulchre of that bloated Hanoverian, the notorious 
Hoadly, surrounded with such emblems as the cap of liberty, and 
the Magna Charta, in close juxta-position with the crosier and 
the Holy Bible ! The character of the Bishop would have been 
better symbolized by some ingenious device illustrative of the 
truth, that — “ the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his mas- 
ter’s crib.” 

One cannot but hope that the superb altar-screen of this cathe 
dral will be more fully restored than at present, and that a pro- 
per altar, or Holy Table, will be added, such as may illustrate 
the true spirit of the Anglican Liturgy, and the richness of its 


RELICS. 


253 


Orthodoxy. A poverty-stricken altar is surely no recommenda- 
tion of reformed religion ; and were I only an ecclesiologist, it 
would delight me to show that such a Holy Table as even the 
Court of Arches could not presume to desecrate, might be erected, 
in strict conformity with the Anglican ritual, and in perfect keep- 
ing with such a choir, that should put to shame the tawdry 
Babylonianism of the Romish altars on the Continent. 

While speaking of the choir, let me not forget the little chests 
which surmount the screens of the sanctuary. Who can look at 
them without emotion, when informed that they contain all that 
remains of princes and priests, and of mighty kings, and fair 
ladies, their queens. There are the remains of Canute and of 
Rufus, of “ Queen Emma and the Bishops Wina and Alwyn.” 
On one may be read the inscription — “ King Edmund, whom this 
chest contains, oh, Christ receive.” Another, marking the era 
of the Rebellion, with a striking trophy of its infamy, bears the 
legend — “In this chest, in the year 1661, were deposited the 
confused relics of princes and prelates, which had been scattered 
by sacrilegious barbarism, in the year 1642.” The havoc made 
by the Puritans in this holy place is everywhere painfully visible. 
The beautiful chapel, in the rear of the choir, is filled with frag- 
ments of carved work and mutilated sculpture, which bear silent 
witness against the “axes and hammers” of the Puritans: while 
many a corresponding “ stone out of the wall ” seems to cry 
shame, and “ many a beam out of the timber, to answer it.” The 
noble figure of a knight, in bronze, upon an altar tomb, bears 
the marks of their indiscriminate violence, in deep cuts or hacks 
made by a sword, apparently in a spirit of wanton brutality. It 
was refreshing to turn from such Vandal tokens, to the simple 
memorial of one who lived in the age that produced them, but 
whose character furnishes altogether as striking a contrast to the 
turbulent spirit of his times, as the still waters and green pastures 
of his native land afford to the elements of the Lapland storm. 
In Prior Silkstede’s chapel, I paid a parting reverence to the slab 
that covers the honourable remains of Izaak Walton. Verily, 
he served God in his generation : for when they knew not how 
to sport at all, he spake of fishes, and when again they sported 
like fools, he spake of men. 

After a walk through sweet meads, and by a clear stream, I 
climbed St. Katherine’s hill, and took a full view of the city and 
its suburbs ; and soon after left for Salisbury. It was, indeed, a 
feast day, that day of St. John the Baptist, on which I saw two 


254 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


such cathedrals as Winchester and Salisbury : the former, charac- 
terized by all the grandeur of the long-drawn aisle — the latter, 
by all the glory of the culminating spire. The emotions inspired 
by the one were those of a well-chanted service ; but I found the 
effect of the other like that of a rapturous anthem. I speak now 
of the external views only : and certainly my first view of Salis- 
bury, that fine midsummer evening, was as a vision of Paradise. 
The heavenward shooting of all its parts, and the consummate 
unity of effect with which they all blend in the sky-piercing 
pyramid, around which they are grouped, exceeds all that I ever 
saw of the kind. I only grudged to the levels of Salisbury, 
what ought rather to crown such a sovereign hill as that of 
Lincoln. 

This Church is familiar to the architect as the full-blown flower 
of his art. It stands in a lonely retirement from the town, and, 
sitting down in its precincts to enjoy the view, I found myself 
uninterrupted in my meditations for a long, delightful hour, the 
only intruders being some nibbling sheep that pastured under the 
walls, and the chattering rooks, that seemed to amuse themselves 
in making a spiral flight round the spire, and so winding up from 
its base to its tapering point. Beautiful for its figure and its 
decoration, is that spire, and so is the incomparable tower, from 
which it springs like a plant ; and wherever the eye rests in wan- 
dering over the splendours of its surrounding walls, buttresses, 
pinnacle, arches, and gables, all is in keeping, and one spirit 
seems to animate the pile. I am sorry to confess disappointment 
as to the interior. It is so neglected, and has been so much im- 
paired. The clustered columns that support the tower have 
yielded to its weight, and are visibly bowed and sprung from their 
piers. The chapter-house exhibits a shameful neglect, and its 
beautiful decorations have suffered from violent abuse. The pre- 
sent Bishop is exerting himself effectually, however, in the work 
of restoration : and one cannot but hope that the next generation 
will see this cathedral the seat of a living and working system of 
diocesan zeal, and the centre of Gospel life and influence to the 
surrounding rural district, and its many needy souls. 

A series of altar tombs, in the nave and aisles, gives a peculiar 
effect to the spaces between the columns, and to the arches above. 
Among them is the tomb of an unfortunate nobleman, who was 
hanged for murder some three hundred years since, and over 
which was, for a long time, suspended the silken noose which 
suspended him. The tomb of a boy-bishop, marked by a little 


AN AMERICAN VICAR. 


255 


figure in pontificals, is a curious relic of mediaeval mummeries ; 
and not less so is the sepulchre of Bishop Roger, a Norman, who 
first attracted the admiration of King Henry I., by the galloping 
pace at which he contrived to get through a mass. I paid a more 
reverent tribute to the plain slab that covers Bishop Jewell, who, 
with all his faults, deserves the rather to be reverenced, because 
this age has bred a set of men, who seem to take pleasure in 
spitting upon his memory, while defiling, with equal insolence, 
the face of their Mother the Church. 

As evening came on, I took a post-chaise for Amesbury and 
Figheldean, where I had been invited to visit that interesting per- 
sonage, Mr. Henry Caswall, a clergyman who has done, perhaps, 
more than any other man, to make known, in England, the his- 
tory and peculiar characteristics of the American Church. He 
is by birth an Englishman ; he is nevertheless in American orders, 
and thus, in his person, unites the Church in which he ministers 
to that in which he received his commission. The interest with 
which I now sought his acquaintance may therefore be imagined. 
After a pleasing drive over the downs, and a rapid inspection of 
the curious remains of “ Old Sarum,” I found myself in a small, 
but picturesque hamlet, in which almost every house was thatch- 
ed, clustered at the foot of a knoll, on which rose the parish 
Church of “ Filedean ” — for so it is pronounced. In a few 
minutes I was Mr. Caswall’s guest, and, for the first time since 
leaving home, I was able to talk over American subjects with one 
who entirely understood them. After a cordial reception by his 
amiable family, a long and cheerful review of American matters 
closed this very happy and memorable day. 

I was much entertained to observe in Mr. Caswall many of 
those traits of enterprise and efficiency which seemed to me to be 
developments of what we should call Western life, though the 
English would consider them simply American. That he is natu- 
rally enterprising and ingenious to a great degree, I am sure no 
one can doubt : it was probably this characteristic which origi- 
nally led him, though a nephew of the Bishop of Salisbury, to 
seek the wilds of Ohio, and to become a Missionary under Bishop 
Chase. But who, that had not been disciplined to invention in 
our Missionary field, could exhibit, as he does, the fruits of this 
faculty, in an exuberant degree, amid all the comforts of an Eng- 
lish vicarage ! A river runs near his Church ; he has boats upon 
it of his own construction, and one has paddle-wheels. In the 
tower of his ancient Church, there ticks a clock of very curious 


256 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


mechanism: it is entirely of his own manufacture; he cast one 
of its wheels in Kentucky, and bought another in New-York ! 
So, too, he has lately built an organ, which discourses excellent 
music ; and his other ingenuities are innumerable, to say nothing 
of his very able works, in which he always contrives to tell what 
is worth knowing, and to say. what is just to the point. 

In his neighbourhood is Milstone, the birth-place of Addison, 
to which he conducted me with obliging enthusiasm. The native 
nest is a modest parsonage, hard by the Church, which is one of 
the very humblest of its kind, and has no tower. I peeped in at 
the windows, and saw where Addison was baptized. Our walk 
was extended to Durrington, where a fine Church was re-appear- 
ing on the foundations of a very ancient one. In the afternoon 
of the same day, this kind friend took me to Amesbury, where 
the remains of a Roman encampment are still visible in some 
trenches and hillocks, which were made by the soldiers of Vespa- 
sian. Thence we went to see the grounds of the once celebrated 
Duchess of Queensbury, and a grotto, which was formerly fre- 
quented by the poet Gay. We passed an old lodge upon this 
estate, which gave shelter, during the Reign of Terror, to a com- 
munity of French nuns. Next, we drove to the famous Stone- 
henge, on Salisbury plain. To me, these gigantic remains of 
Druid superstition were of surpassing interest: and while my 
friend explained to me the various theories of their origin and 
use, I found the actual inspection of this old scene of horrible 
idolatry, the rather fascinating, because from its still existing 
altar, one can just descry over the hills in the horizon, the needle- 
like point of the spire of Salisbury. I never felt before, that 
England had once been Pagan, and that the Gospel had conquer- 
ed it, and made it all that Salisbury is, as compared with this 
accursed temple of the idol Bel. The Chaldean Shepherds seem 
indeed to have shared their superstition with those of Salisbury. 

We drove over the plains, so called, to visit Wilton, and my 
attention was continually attracted by the shepherds and their 
flocks, not unlike, in some respects, to those who are seen on the 
Roman Campagna. Their dogs, who do the work of men, in 
searching stragglers, and in driving and tending the sheep, are in- 
teresting objects. Of course the story of Hannah More came 
often to mind as we encountered these sights. But other inter- 
esting associations were excited by the evident remains of old 
Roman roads, which traversed these pasturages in ancient times. 
There were, besides, some strange circular hollows, in form like 


iNETLEY ABBEY. 


257 


saucers, of undoubted Roman origin, which lay on either side of 
our way as we drove over a sort of ridge-road. As we left the 
downs, we had a fine view of the surrounding country, and des- 
cried Trafa 7 *ar House, the seat of Lord Nelson, at a distance. 
We passed • noble estate of the Pembroke family; and visited 
the magrXcent Church, at Wilton, reared by Mr. Sydney Her- 
bert, at h'i personal expense of sixty thousand pounds. It is a 
superb Anglican basilica, a curiosity in England, as departing 
from the historical architecture of the realm, and closely resem- 
bling the finest churches of Italy. It is, however, a blessing to 
the place, and is largely frequented by the poor. From this 
splendid Church we drove to a still more interesting one, although 
a church as remarkably poor as this is costly. The smallest and 
plainest little Church I had yet seen in England was reached at 
last, and reverently entered. A few pews, a chancel and Holy 
Table of starving plainness, and a pulpit to match ! This was 
holy Herbert’s Church — this was Bemerton ! I climbed, and 
then crawled into the little box of a belfry, to see the bell which 
he tolled when he was instituted ; and then I went outside, and 
looked in at the window, through which he was descried tarrying 
long at prayer, on his face, before the altar. How a good life 
can glorify what otherwise would be utterly without attractions ! 
Even in America, I have seldom seen a church look so mean as 
that at Bemerton : yet few places have I ever visited with more 
of awe and affection ; and verily, all the embellishments of the 
Sistine Chapel failed to produce in me such a sense of the 
beauty of holiness, as did the sight of the humble altar, at which 
ministered before the Lord two hundred years ago, that man of 
God, George Herbert. 

v Reaching Southampton early in the evening of a mid-summer 
day, I had time enough, during the long twilight, for an excur- 
sion to Netley Abbey, which I made in a boat, rowed by an old 
waterman and his son, a lad of twelve years. The descending 
sun threw its radiance over the bright Southampton water, as 
we left the pier, and a pathway of burnished gold seemed to lie 
in our wake, as we glided rapidly along. The boy volunteered 
to sing a little hymn which he had learned at Sunday School, and, 
accordingly the praise of God was sweetly wafted by the sunset 
breezes that played about us ; and if I have heard more romantic 
strains on the Venetian waters, since then, from the gondoliers, 
I can testify that they were no sweeter, and not half so inspiring 
to a devout disposition. This beautiful bay was filled with many 


258 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


sails, and the neighbouring shores, on every side, were highly 
picturesque. We reached the “glad nook,” whose corrupted 
Latin name survives, in Netley , just in time to disturb the com- 
posures of the rook and owl, as they were congratulating them- 
selves on the close of the day, and settling for the night, the 
one in his dormitory, and the other in his watch-tower. There 
was enough of day to display the entire beauty of the ruins, 
and enough of melancholy night to give them a mysterious 
solemnity. Here I stumbled over piles of rubbish, overgrown 
with grass and wall-flowers, among which slender trees have 
sprouted side by side with the branching columns of the archi- 
tect; while through graceful tracery, and broken vaulting, I 
looked up into the deep heaven, and descried the first stars as 
they began to twinkle in its unfathomable azure. I fancied I 
could hear the gentle sigh of the waters on the pebbled beach, 
which spreads hard by beneath its walls, and the charms of the 
spot, as a home of religion, became very vividly impressed on my 
mind as the soft susurrations appeared to bewail the loss of 
responsive vesper-songs from the consecrated pile. It was a 
bewitching hour for such a visit : and when I went down into 
crypts, and gloomy vaults, which were barely light enough to 
enable me to feel my way, and to descry the surrounding outlines 
of Gothic ruin, through loop-holes and doorways festooned with 
luxuriant ivy, all that I ever read of romance, in its wildest 
forms, seemed conjured about me. It was quite dark as we 
returned, but the waters glittered with tremulous reflections of 
many lights on the shore ; and our little pilot sung — “ There’s a 
good time coming, boys I” with a sort of pathetic thrill, which 
made me love him, and I prayed that he might live to see the good 
time which he so feelingly promised himself. I conversed with 
him freely, and found that he had been taught of God, in the 
bosom of the Church. 

Next morning I took the steamer to Cowes. The sail down 
the sea of Southampton was very pleasant, and my fancy was as 
busy as my sight, as we skirted along the shore, from which the 
“ New Forest” stretches away towards Dorsetshire, cover- 
ing many a square mile of merry England with woods as dense 
as those of our own primeval wilds. How exciting to reflection, 
the view of a wood which, for so many ages, has perpetuated 
the violence of William the Norman, and the tragic memory of 
Rufus ! A gay little French woman, who knew nothing of the 
history, however, and who seemed to take me for an Englishman, 


OSBORNE HOUSE. 


259 


expressed herself, in her sprightly vernacular, in terms of raptu- 
rous delight, with reference to the scenery alone. She was over- 
whelmed with the luxurious beauty of England, as contrasted 
with the penury which stares you in the face for leagues and 
leagues in France, in places where nature only needs a little aid 
from cultivation to assume a face as cheerful as those of its 
inhabitants. When we passed Calshot Castle, and had the Isle 
of Wight in full view, I was nearly as much inspired as herself. 
The admirable service which the island renders to the British 
fleet, became apparent as we looked towards those “ leviathans 
afloat,” at Spithead ; but I turned with greater interest towards 
the Solant, and tried hard to descry that lonely spur of Hamp- 
shire, on which stands Hurst Castle, the scene of one of the most 
thrilling episodes in the closing history of Charles the First. As 
we approached Cowes, it reminded me of Staten Island, off 
New- ifork, and, at first, I hardly knew to what I owed the asso- 
ciation, though the similarity of scene is considerable; but 
when a second glance showed me a noble ship, of unmistakeable 
American proportions, with the American ensign fluttering at 
her peak, just under the lee of the island, I felt the home-feeling 
overpoweringly, and could have shouted my salutation to my 
country’s oak, with full lungs and a fuller heart ! I pointed it 
out to the French woman, and told her of my country, and then 
I was saluted with her voluble congratulations, in such terms as 
showed that she, at least, thought it a land of which one has a 
right to be proud. 

Osborne House is a prominent object, on the rising bank of the 
Medina, as one drives from Cowes toward Newport, and I look- 
ed with no little interest at the beautiful home in which Victoria 
and Albert live the life of private people, without sacrificing the 
dignity which they owe it to the nation to sustain. It delights 
me to say that they have the reputation of cultivating, there, 
every domestic virtue ; and I was charmed with a popular print, 
which one sees in the neighbourhood, representing the family at 
Osborne, on their knees, with the prince reading prayers among 
his children. 

I was fortunate in visiting this gem of the sea, during the 
most pleasant part of the year. The hay-makers were at work, 
and everywhere a delicious fragrance filled the air. Our drive 
from Newport to Chale afforded many pleasing views, and my 
first view of the open sea was enchanting. The channel was as 
smooth as glass, and the vessels that lay upon it scarcely seemed 


200 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


to move. From the celebrated Black-gang jChine, the view of 
the chalky coast of Dorset, the curving shore of Freshwater- 
bay, and the bristling file of cliffs, called “ the Needles,” was 
truly superb. Then wheeling round the bold head of St. Cathe- 
rine’s Downs, we entered that sweet realm of Faerie, called the 
Under cliff, where a palisade of rock rises on one side of the 
road, and the sea-beach lies below, the exposure being such as to 
receive the breath and the sunshine of the genial south, with all 
the vigorous breezes of the ocean. Here the roses bloom all the 
year in the open air, and Nature has made it all that Nature 
could, by a combination of her charms. Indeed, the circuit of 
the coast, from here to Yaverland, seen, at various hours of the 
day, in all the shifting effects of the sun and shadows, affords a 
panorama of incomparable attractions : here a dense grove, and 
there a deep cleft in the rocks, intercepting the sea-view, and 
then, again, a fresh apocalypse of beauty, breaking upon the sight, 
at some unexpected turn of the way. The murmur of ocean 
comes to the ear just as the eye catches the numberless smiles of 
its surface, and a glimpse through green foliage will often dis- 
cover a brilliant perspective, in which the blue sea, and the gray 
rocks, and the fading horizon, are enlivened by a stretching show 
of snowy canvas, reflecting the golden light of the sun, sail after 
sail, the tiniest glittering far off on the verge of the expanse, like 
a star in the twilight. 

The Tom-thumb Church of St. Lawrence, with walls six feet 
high, and all the rest in proportion; the beauties of Yentnor, 
and Bonchurch, and Shanklin Chine ; in short, the entire scenery 
of the Undercliff is enchanting, and bewitches one with a desire 
to build a tabernacle there, and to rest from one’s labours. At 
Brading, I paused, in honour of good Legh Richmond, and 
visited the grave of his “Young Cottager.” Ryde is a pleasant 
place enough, something like our Staten Island towns in situa- 
tion, and in many other particulars. But my drive from Ryde 
to Newport, through Wooton and Fern-hill, disclosed many of 
those inland scenes of rural beauty, for which the Isle of Wight 
is unsurpassed. Hedges, thick and green, on each side of the 
road, with wild woodbine twisting all over them, and loading the 
air with perfumes, were the appropriate frame-work of rich fields, 
waving with golden crops, fragrant with new-mown hay, or filled 
with pasturing cattle, while here and there they enclosed a little 
garden full of flowers, or were broken by the prettiest cottages in 
a 1 the world, neatly whitewashed, and trimly thatched, and 


CARISBROOKE. 


261 


planted about with white and red roses, clambering over the win- 
dows, mounting to the eaves, and even straggling among the straw, 
to the ridge of the roof. Again I caught a glimpse of the towers 
of Osborne ; but it seemed to me that the Queen herself might 
be willing to exchange them for these charming little snuggeries 
of her contented peasantry. 

But I came to the Isle, above all, to see Carisbrooke Castle, 
and thither I went, after a night at Newport. It was a bright, 
unclouded morning, and I went alone. Over a little bridge 
you pass to the great doorway, between two massive towers, 
hung with verdure, and pierced with cross-shaped arrow-slits. 
All was as quiet and as beautiful as if no history brooded over 
the spot, with strange and melancholy witchery. The twitter 
of a bird, the nodding of a wild rose in the morning breeze, 
the sparkling of the dew upon the leaves, all seemed to share 
something of the mysterious spell. ‘ How still, and yet how 
speaking, thought I, this scene of mighty personal struggles, 
of a crisis of ages, of overwhelming sorrows! Is it not con- 
scious of its own dignity? Poor Charles! after seeing thy brief 
wrestling with adversity, it has lapsed into desolation, and lets 
the world have its own way, while it alone wears enduring tokens 
of sympathy with thee !’ 

I saw the window where the King made one last effort to be 
free. Sir Thomas Herbert’s portraiture rose all before me, and 
a thousand busy thoughts, which any one may imagine, but 
which language fails to arrest, much more to convey. Ascending 
to the keep, surveying the undulating scenery, and loitering here 
and there among the ruins, the past, the entrancing past floated 
around me like an atmosphere ; and I felt how much more power- 
ful than romance, is the charm of historic fact, when invested 
with living interest, by associations of religion, by connections 
with surviving realities, and by the perpetual attraction and moral 
sublimity of an example of greatness and worth, tried in the fur- 
nace of affliction. 

Nor did I forget that lily among thorns, the little princess 
who died in this doleful prison, of a broken heart, after be- 
wailing her father’s murder a single year. The sweet child, 
Elizabeth ! what a thought it was to imagine her moaning her 
young life away, amid these gloomy walls, surrounded only by 
the butchers of her adored parent, mocking her woes ! Among 
tales of childhood’s sorrows, there have been few like hers. 

Everybody has heard of “ a pebble in Carisbrooke well.” I 


262 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


tried the usual experiments, and saw a lamp let down in it, three 
hundred feet, and then drank of the water, drawn by donkey- 
power, with all the sublime emotions conceivable on such an 
occasion. There is a story that the well was originally of Roman 
construction, and that the Romans had a fortress here, which it 
first supplied. At any rate, it is a very good well, and no doubt 
administered many a refreshing draught to the royal prisoners, to 
whom “a cup of cold water” was well nigh all that the charity 
of the place afforded. 

Crossing from the Isle of Wight to Portsmouth, I had a fine 
sight, in the incessant broadsides which were fired by her Majes- 
ty’s ship, the “ Vengeance,” anchored at Spithead, apparently for 
exercise, or sport. The gallant ship, the blazing port-holes, the 
rolling clouds of smoke, and the reverberating thunders, made our 
transit, from shore to shore, one of exciting interest. The “ Royal 
George” went down just in that anchorage, and there she lies 
now. I paid a visit to the “ Victory,” in the harbour of Ports- 
mouth, after an unsuccessful effort to board the beautiful yacht, 
in which the Queen makes her progresses by sea. On the deck 
of the “ Victory” fell the idolized Nelson : a small brass plate 
marks the spot. After looking at this, and trying to reproduce 
the scene, I descended to the cock-pit, and surveyed the dark and 
gloomy cell in which he breathed his last, reclining against a huge 
rib of his ship. Poor soul ! If he had but served God as he served 
his King, there would have been a glory in that death, beyond 
that of “ victory, or Westminster Abbey.” After a rapid survey 
of the dock-yards, I made my way, by rail, to Chichester. 

A fine market-cross distinguishes this city, and is kept in ex 
cellent repair. But the great attraction is, of course, its cathe- 
dral, a mutilated but still noble structure, which I found well 
worthy of a visit. It exhibits some praiseworthy restorations, 
and I was pleased to find that its nave is frequently used for ser- 
mons. It has many tombs and monuments of note, and many of 
its architectural peculiarities are attractive. Relics and antiqui- 
ties connected with the history of the See are shown, and it is 
painful to find, in one apartment, mysterious evidence of the ill 
uses to which a church could be put, before the Reformation. In 
the Bishop’s Consistory Court, there is a secret door in the wain- 
scot looking like a mere panel. This moves with a slide, and 
covers a massive gate, with a lock, which opens into a strong 
room, once used as a prison. It was no doubt the scene of suffer- 
ing for conscience sake, in the days of the Lollards. 


COLLINS. 


263 


After having so lately described other cathedrals of much 
greater interest, I will only add, concerning this, that I was much 
pleased to note among its monuments the modern one, by Flax- 
man, commemorative of the poet Collins. Architecturally, in- 
deed, it is out of place : but the unfortunate bard was a native of 
the cathedral precinct, and the Christian artist has seized upon 
that incident in his unhappy life, which attests the consolations 
which highest genius may derive from the same source that makes 
childhood wise unto salvation. “ I have but one book,” said he 
to a visitor, shortly before he died, as he held up the New Testa- 
ment, and added — “ the best.” 

My next stage was Brighton, where I enjoyed a sea-bath, and 
a brief survey of that beautiful creation of fashion. But my 
chief enjoyment here was received in the delightful hospitalities 
of a distinguished family, which I shall always remember with 
sincere regard, as embracing some of the most agreeable persons 
I have ever met. Among the varieties of English character 
which have most charmed me, those to which I now gratefully 
refer, are often reviving in memory, as affording a true ideal of 
domestic happiness, enlivened by sentiment, and hallowed by a 
spirit of devotion. 

I was forced to make a very rapid survey of the southern coast, 
passing by the old abbey at Lewes and the castle at Pevensey ; 
and pausing scarcely an hour upon the noble beach at Hastings, 
and amid the ruins of its castle. With greater regret I was 
forced to omit visits to Battle Abbey, to Hever Castle, and to 
Penshurst, to the last-named of which I had an especial drawing, 
for the sake of Hammond and Sir Philip Sydney. I was engaged 
to spend St. Peter’s day at Canterbury, and to be the anniversary 
preacher, a privilege to which I was willing to sacrifice many 
other pleasures. Passing, therefore, through some pretty Kentish 
scenery, and pausing to visit the old monuments at Ashford, I 
made my way, before nightfall, to the city of pilgrimages, and was 
received as a guest within the Warden’s lodge at St. Augustine’s. 
An anniversary dinner was served in the hall, at which several 
distinguished personages were present ; and afterwards I saw the 
ceremony of admitting a scholar to the foundation. I then visit- 
ed the room over the gateway, which lodged King Charles I., on 
his bridal tour ; and, after service in the chapel, retired to my 
room in tjhis holy and religious home of the Church’s children. 





CHAPTER XXX. 


St. Augustine's Chapel — St. Martin's — Addison — Thompson . 

In the chapel of St. Augustine we kept St. Peter’s Day, and 
commemorated the benefactors of the college. It was a cheering 
spectacle to behold around me those missionary youths, devoted to 
the noblest warfare which can enlist the energies of man, and 
destined, as I could not but pray, to see and to achieve great 
things in the extension of the kingdom of Immanuel upon earth. 
And how inspiring to them the associations with which they are 
surrounded ! On the very spot which they inhabit, the Mission- 
ary Augustine preached the Gospel to their ancestors, when 
Anglo-Saxons were but pagans , and now they go forth from it, 
as from the very centre of Christian civilization, to bear the pre- 
cious seed to the uttermost isles of the sea, so that what England 
is, Australia may become. 

In the afternoon, I preached in old St. Martin’s, which probably 
is the very oldest Church in England. Its name of St. Martin 
is probably a second designation, given to it when it was fitted up 
for the use of good Queen Bertha, before the Conversion of her 
husband, Ethelbert. Such a Church is spoken of by Bede, as 
having been built before the Romans left the island ; and as 
Roman bricks, of unquestionable antiquity, are a large portion 
of the material of this Church, it is on this and other accounts 
generally dated from A. D. 187, and supposed to have been origi 
nally erected by some good Cornelius of the Roman army. Be 
that as it may, Queen Bertha’s tomb is in the choir to this day : 
and the ancient font is with good reason supposed to be that in 
which Ethelbert was baptized. What hoary antiquity, what 
venerable and august dignity invest this sacred place ! It is of 
humble dimensions, and both without and within bears the marks 


A HIGH ALTAR. 


265 


of its primitive character, in its plainness and simplicity but it 
is kept in good repair, and regarded with the affectionate reve- 
rence which is so becoming. The yews and the ivy which adorn 
it with their shade, are, apparently, almost as old as the Church : 
and the church-yard gently slopes from the church-door to the 
road-side, giving a beautiful elevation to the old pile, and present- 
ing a highly picturesque effect to the passer-by. 

But how shall I describe the cathedral, whose huge bulk every- 
where lifts itself into sight above this curious and reverend old 
town? The metropolis of the Anglo-Catholic communion is 
graced by an Archiepiscopal church, every way worthy of the 
majestic relations which it bears to Christendom. There it stands, 
like the Church of England itself, worthy to be “ the joy of the 
whole earth,” and not more magnificent and imposing, than har- 
moniously chastened throughout with an air of sovereign splen- 
dour subdued by solemn propriety. There is about it, as com- 
pared with other English cathedrals, a sort of aggregated look, 
strikingly significant of the massively conglomerate body which 
the Anglican Church has already become, and something of 
which has characterized her from the beginning. The double 
cross, in form of which the cathedral is built, very appropriately, 
in view of its primacy, heightens this effect : and the result is, that 
its prestige is well sustained, when the pilgrim sees before him the 
head church of his religion. A blessing on its ancient towers, 
and may it more and more become “ dear for its reputation 
through the world.” 

On Sunday and the day following, when I attended service in 
the cathedral, I had the best opportunities for surveying it through- 
out, under the attentive guidance of Lord Charles Thynne and 
the estimable Archdeacon Harrison. I am glad to say that the 
service here was very effectively celebrated, though a larger force 
would have been more worthy of the place and of the work. 
The organ is quite concealed in the triforia, and its sound is some- 
what peculiar as it issues from those high cells, in perfect unison 
with “ the full-voiced choir below.” As to the effect of the cathe- 
dral upon the eye, I remember no interior, save that of Milan, 
which can compare with it for impressiveness ; and if, from general 
effect, we descend to details, this cathedral is vastly the more 
solemn and magnificent of the twain. Its altar, for example, is 
one of the most lofty in Christendom, the choir rising from the 
nave by a long flight of steps, and the altar being elevated, in like 
manner, very high above the level of the choir. The several 

12 


266 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


ascents and various levels of the Church, instead of too much 
breaking its whole, seem to add an air of vastness and sublimity 
to the general design. But when one surveys, now the nave, and 
looks upwards into the tower, and along the far-sweeping vaultings, 
and now the choir and its intersecting arches and vistas ; or de- 
scends to that varied undercroft, with its chapels and sepulchres, 
and twisted columns, and French inscriptions ; or mounts to make 
circuit of the tombs and chapels, pausing within “ Becket’s Crown” 
to admire its unique and anomalous elegance ; and then makes his 
way through the cloisters into the chapter-house, and finally es- 
capes into outer day, and looks up again at the vast pile, through 
which he has been wondering and wandering so long — the impres- 
sion left upon the mind is one of astonishment, like that of the 
Queen of Sheba, when “ there was no more spirit in her.” I had 
seen the spot where Becket fell beneatli the stout blows of his 
murderers — the marble floor which received his blood still ex- 
hibiting a speaking memorial of the tragedy, in a small mutilation 
which was made in sawing out the bloody block, to be carried to 
Home as a relic ; I had seen the remains of the same prelate’s 
shrine, where his sovereign submitted to flagellation, where 
princes presented so many costly oblations, and which once glittered 
with such gorgeous wealth before the eye of Erasmus ; I had seen 
the stone-stairs leading up to his sepulchre, worn away b/ the 
thousands of devotees, among which I reckoned those of certain 
Canterburie pilgrims, accompanied by Dan Chaucer himself ; I 
had seen the tomb of the Black Prince, with his lion-like effigy — 
over which dangles his surcoat, a thing of tatters, but which no 
one can behold without emotion, when he reflects that it once 
encased the beating heart and chivalrous breast of that gallant 
Plantagenet. I had beheld the recumbent effigies of the usurp- 
ing Lancaster, Henry IV., and his Queen, Joan of Navarre; and 
I had surveyed the memorial works, or sepulchres, of the primates 
of all England, from Lanfranc to Chichely ; but after all, I bore 
away no remembrance more pleasing than that of the monumen- 
tal window and tomb of the late Archbishop Howley, commemo- 
rating, as they do, a most worthy prelate, and marking the great 
epoch of a revival of theology, and of practical faith, throughout 
the Church of England. This tomb is surmounted by the recum- 
bent effigy of the Bishop, and presents a most graceful specimen 
of reviving art. He is habited in his sacred vestments, to which 
the addition of the cope gives completeness and effect ; and as the 
Archbishop wore that \estment at the coronation of Queen Vic- 


ADDISON. 


2 n 

tlie Scottish palladium ; and the old monkish fable makes it one 
of the stones of Jacob’s pillow, at Bethel. The monuments of 
Edward III., and Queen Philippa, and that of Henry V., com- 
manded my especial attention. Above the latter, are preserved 
the saddle, shield, and helmet, which he used at Agincourt. The 
body of Edward I. rests beneath a plain altar-tomb. In the 
centre of the chapel is the shrine of St. Edward : and it is as 
near as possible to these relics of their predecessors, that English 
sovereigns are still anointed and crowned in the adjoining choir. 
At such times, if these silent tombs are startled by the shouts of 
the multitude that cry — Long live the King , how much more 
forcibly they must speak to him, in their mute expressiveness, 
reminding him of his nothingness, and calling him to prepare for 
a long home in the dust ! 

To the reflections of Addison and of Irving, in this consecrated 
pile, I shall not attempt to add my own. The sweet interpreter 
of the moral of this wonderful place, sleeps appropriately under its 
tutelage, and few are the graves within it, which more affect a 
kindred heart. To see the grave of Addison, which was lately 
marked by a small white stone, in the pavement of one of the 
chapels, suggests a kind of postscript to his own musings ; and, 
as I stood, thoughtfully, over it, I seemed to hear his voice, out 
of the sepulchre, confirming his living words. I thought, more- 
over, how much has been done, since his day, to add to the in- 
terest of the holy place — even in addition to his own grave ! 
How many tombs I saw, which he did not — his own among 
them! Addison knew nothing of Johnson’s sepulchre; stood 
not by the rival relics of Pitt and Fox; thrilled not as he ap- 
proached the resting-place of a Wolfe, or a Wilberforce; and 
little dreamed how much more than the shrine of Kings, his own 
last bed would impress a stranger from America, in the nine- 
teenth century. How transcendant the enchantment with 
which genius invests its possessor, where it is paired with virtue ! 
With what refreshment I often turned from the royal tombs to 
the Poets’ Corner ; and there, with what reverence did I turn 
most frequently to the monuments of those whose high artistic 
inspiration was characterized by the pure spirit of love to God. 
It was pleasing to behold the memorials of Chaucer, and of 
u rare Ben Jonson ;” but with a fonder veneration I paused 
more frequently before that of the stainless Spenser. I thought 
of his words concerning “ the laurel” — and how fittingly they 
apply to this Abbey, as the — 


272 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


“ Meed of mighty conquerors 

And poets sage.” 

With a different sort of pleasure I surveyed the wonders oi 
the British Museum. There, a scholar can find all he needs in 
the way of literary food, freely bestowed. I do not admire the 
new buildings ; but the Institution is worthy of a great nation, 
and reflects eternal honour on George the Third. Will the 
Smithsonian, at Washington, ever rival it? Its newest and its 
oldest treasures, were the great stones from Nineveh, so cleverly 
described by the Quarterly. With what emotions I surveyed 
those illegible hieroglyphics; and scraped acquaintance with 
those “placid grinning kings, twanging their jolly bows ovei 
their rident horses, wounding those good-humoured enemies, who 
tumble gaily off the towers, or drown, smiling in the dimpling 
waters, amidst the a vri^idfio^ yeX ad\ia of fish.” 

The English, though a proud people, are really very moderate 
in their appreciation of the manifold charms of their incompara- 
ble isle. When I surveyed the river-view from Richmond-hill, I 
recalled the glorious waters of my own dear country, and many 
a darling scene which is imperishably stamped in my mind’s eye, 
and asked myself whether, indeed, this was more delightful to the 
sight than those. I was slow to admit anything inferior in the 
scenery of the Hudson and Susquehanna, when I compared them 
with so diminutive a stream as the Thames, and I even reproved 
myself for bringing them into parallel ; but over and over again 
was I forced to allow, that “ earth has not anything to show more 
fair,” than the rich luxuriance of the panorama which I then 
surveyed. A river whose banks are old historic fields, and whose 
placid surface reflects, from league to league of its progress, the 
towers of palaces and of churches which, for centuries, have been 
hallowed by ennobling and holy associations; which flows by the 
favourite haunts of genius, or winds among the antique halls of 
consecrated learning; and which, after sweeping beneath the 
gigantic arches, domes and temples of a vast metropolis, gives 
itself to the burthen of fleets and navies, and bears them magnifi- 
cently forth to the ocean; such an object must necessarily be 
one of the highest interest to any one capable of appreciating 
the mentally beautiful and sublime ; but when natural glories 
invest the same objects with a thousand independent attractions, 
who need be ashamed of owning an overpowering enthusiasm in 
the actual survey and something scarcely less thrilling in the 


THOMSON. 


273 


recollection ! When I afterward looked towards Rome, and 
descried the dome of St. Peter’s from Tivoli, I felt, as Gray has 
somewhere observed, that nothing but the: intellect is delighted 
there, while on Richmond-hill, the soul and the sense alike 
are ravished with the view, and fail to conceive anything more 
satisfying of its kind. If ever, which God forbid, the barbarian 
should overrun this scene, and make ruins of its surrounding 
villas and churches, the contemplative visitor of a future genera- 
tion will still linger on those heights with far more of com- 
plicated and harmonious satisfaction than can possibly refresh 
the eye that wanders over the dreary Campagna. Yet how 
few of the great and fashionable in England have ever allowed 
themselves to appreciate the glories of their own scenery after 
this sort ! 

But whether on those lofty banks, or down by the river-side, 
or wherever I wandered amid their green retreats, I owned to 
myself one sad disappointment. I repeated over and over again 
those verses, learned in school- days, in which Collins bewails the 
poet of the Seasons : — 

“ Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore. 

When Thames in summer wreaths is dressed, 

And oft suspend the dashing oar, 

To bid his gentle spirit rest.” 

Where was “yonder grave,” and where “yon whitening spire?” 
It was with some chagrin that I followed my directions into the 
dullest haunts of the town, and into a modernized church, in an 
unromantic street, and there soliloquized, over a miserable brass 
plate, amid a pile of pew-lumber — “ In such a grave your Druid 
lies !” It is amusing, on a few square inches of worthless metal, 
as entirely devoid of artificial value as it is of intrinsic worth, to 
observe the vanity with which a man of rank has contrived to 
write his own name in as large letters as those of the poet’s. 
“ The Earl of Buchan, unwilling that so good a man, and so 
sweet a poet, should be without a memorial, has denoted the place 
of his interment, &c.” — so reads the inscription. The Earl has 
at least the merit of having exactly expressed the character of 
his tribute, for it denotes the place, and that’s all. One would 
think a Scottish nobleman might have spared a few guineas in 
doing something better for the grave of his countryman. 

A glimpse of Twickenham, and of the spire of the church 
where Pope is entombed, were all that I allowed myself, in honour 

12 * 


274 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


of a bard whose faultless verse is no excuse for the frequent inde- 
cency and paganism of its sentiment. It is a curious and revolting 
fact that his skull has been purloined, and now belongs to a phre- 
nologist. I caught a railway view of Dachet-lane, famous for 
Falstaff’s experiences in the buck-basket, and so once more to 
Windsor ! I stopped, over a train, to enjoy one more walk on the 
castle terrace, and one more look at Eton college, and then has- 
tened on to Oxford, to attend the Commemoration. I accepted the 
hospitalities of my friends of Magdalen, who lodged me in the 
rooms formerly occupied by the Bishop of Exeter. 

During my visit I did not fail to see the celebrated Dr. Pusey, 
who struck me as a younger man than he is generally supposed to 
be. His appearance indicates nothing eccentric or ascetic, and his 
manners are those of a gentleman at home in the society of his 
fellow-men. He has friends and foes at Oxford, as well as else- 
where, but all seem to regard him with respect as a man of piety 
and learning. To me he was less a lion, however, because I have 
always regarded the application of his name to the great move- 
ment of 1833 , as a mere instance of popular caprice. His share in 
it has been less than that of many others ; neither the credit of its 
good, nor the disgrace of its evil, belongs to him in any superlative 
degree. Its progress has left him, with others, far in the rear of its 
existing interests ; and what has been stigmatized as Puseyism is 
perhaps, when fairly distinguished from the extravagances of a few 
fanatics and sophists, the English phase of a world-wide return to 
principles that were the life of Christianity, long before Popery was 
in existence, and ages before it had bred Protestantism by its vio- 
lent reaction. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 


Oxford and Cambridge. 

I had seen Oxford in vacation, and again during term ; I had 
now the privilege of attending its Encaenia. The occasion brings 
many distinguished persons to the University, and the pleasures 
of dining and breakfasting in the college-halls, and with private 
parties, are greatly enhanced by such additions to the company of 
eminent residents. The ceremonies in the Academic theatre 
sadly disappointed me. Imagine an open area, filled with gowns- 
men and their friends, and surrounded by tiers of boxes filled 
with ladies, above which, near the ceiling, is elevated a third 
tier, full of undergraduates. The Dons and doctors, in their 
robes, sit on either side of the Vice-Chancellor, at one extremity 
of the theatre, in a place something between a row of boxes and 
an orchestra. In the presence of ladies and of such grave and 
reverend seniors, one naturally expects decorum from all parties ; 
but though I had often read of the frolics in which the under* 
graduates are permitted to indulge on these occasions, I confess 
I was not fully prepared for the excessive and prolonged turbu- 
lence of the scene. While awaiting the opening of the cere- 
monial, it was well enough to laugh at the cheers of the youth 
as they called out successively the names of favourite public 
personages, or at their sibilations, when the names of “ Lord John 
Bussell” and “ Cardinal Wiseman” were proposed for merited 
derision. But when, again and again, as the venerable Vice- 
Chancellor rose to make a beginning, his voice was vociferously 
outnoised by that of the boys overhead, I began to think the 
joke was carried a little too far. There had been some omission 
of customary music, and to supply the deficiency, uprose those 
legions of youth, and shouted — God save the Queen , in full chorus, 


276 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


stanza after stanza, till the Dons looked eminently disloyal in 
their impatience. The Creweian Oration was delivered by the 
Public Orator, and I was particularly desirous of marking his 
pronunciation of Latin words, as well as the general merit of a 
performance in which once, upon a like occasion, Bishop Lowth 
so handsomely acquitted himself. But, I think, I speak within 
bounds when I say that scarcely an entire sentence could be 
heard, from beginning to end. All manner of outcries assailed 
the speaker, from his rising till he surceased. At one time, an 
extremely impudent personality excited a general smile. The 
orator waxed warm as he spoke, and growing quite rubicund of 
visage, some flagitious freshman cried out — “ Pray stop ; it makes 
me hot to look at you.” Several distinguished individuals, 
bishops and generals, and scientific men, were presented to receive 
the Doctorate in Civil Law , and now I supposed the hospitality of 
the University would suffice to shield the eminent personages from 
the annoyance of such untimely fun. But there was no cessa- 
tion, and when Sir W. Page Wood was presented, there was a 
merry cry of “ inutile lignum ,” at which no one laughed more 
heartily than the party himself. Verily, thought I, if this were 
unheard of in England, and were only set down in the book of some 
peregrine Dickens, as what he saw in America, at a Harvard 
Commencement, how inevitably would it figure in reviews and 
newspapers as a telling fact against the disorganizing tendencies of 
democratic education ! In Oxford, it is regarded as a mere out- 
break of youthful merriment, and such is indeed the case : and 
yet, unless Enccenia and Saturnalia are synonymous terms, one 
must be allowed to think the custom best honoured in the breach. 
I must add, that during the delivery of a poem, by an under- 
graduate, his comrades showed more respect, and the tumult 
subsided for a time, like that of Ephesus, on the remonstrance of 
the town-clerk. The young poet pronounced his numbers in the 
same tribune where once stood Reginald Heber, enchanting all 
hearers with his “ Palestine.” 

A lunch in the superb new hall of Pembroke, of which many 
ladies partook with the other guests, giving the hall an unusually 
gay appearance ; a dinner at Oriel, and afterwards sport with 
bowls, and other games, in the garden of Exeter ; and, finally, a 
very agreeable evening party at Magdalen ; these were the other 
occupations of the day, in which I greatly enjoyed the society with 
which I mingled. I was particularly pleased to observe the enthusi- 
asm of the female visitors of Oxford, many of whom had come 


BUNYAN. 


277 


up for the first time, and were less acquainted with the place than 
myself. It was a novel pleasure, on my part, to turn cicerone , 
and to explain to a group of English ladies, the wonders of the 
University. 

Next morning, after breakfast at Merton, and a lunch at Jesus 
College, with some kind friends who were preparing to leave 
Oxford for the Long Vacation, I went, in the company of some 
of them, to Bedford, and there took coach for Cambridge. I 
thought of John Bunyan, who once inhabited the county -jail, in 
this place, and there composed his wonderful allegory ; and as I 
began to travel along the banks of the Ouse, I thought of William 
Cowper, who was one of the first to do justice to his piety and 
genius. If the Church of England, sharing in the fault of the 
times, (and visiting others with far milder penalties than both 
Papists and Puritans laid upon her) was in any sort a party to 
his ill-usage, it must be owned that she has done him full justice, 
in the end. He owed his enlargement to the Bishop of Lincoln’s 
interposition, and Cowper and Southey have affixed the stamp, 
and given currency to the gold of his genius. I am ashamed 
that he was not taken into the Bishop of Lincoln’s house, and 
made a deacon, and so cured of the mistaken enthusiasm which 
was evidently the misfortune of the tinker, and not the natural 
bent of the man. 

Our journey lay over a dull and level country, and there was 
little to enliven it, except the conversation of a young Oxonian 
going to see the rival University. A cantab, returning from Ox- 
ford, maintained a good-natured debate with him, in favour of 
his own alma-mater. We went through St. Neot’s, where I re- 
membered Cowper again ; descried at the distance of some twenty 
miles the majestic bulk of Ely Cathedral, and finally greeted the 
fair vision of King’s College, conspicuous among the other acade- 
mic homes of Granta. It was the fourth of July — and thoughts 
of the very different scenes through which my friends were pass- 
ing in America, were continually in my mind. Here it was not 
thought of, though a day which has left its mark upon Great 
Britain, and the world. Was it the day of a rebellion ? By no 
means ; unless the day that seated William of Orange on the 
throne of England was such. Our fathers ceased to be English- 
men, because a corrupt and incompetent Ministry were resolved 
that they should no longer be freemen. I thank God we are no 
longer at the mercy of such men as Lord John Russell, and Sir 
William Molesworth. So I mused, even as I stood, for the first 


273 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


time, in venerable Cambridge, where some of my forefathers were 
educated, and where I felt it a sort of wrong to be disinherited 
of a filial right to feel at home. 

I was not disappointed, disagreeably, in Cambridge, but the 
reverse ; and it grew upon me every hour that I was there. One 
of my first visits was to the truly poetical courts of Caius, where 
the singular quaintness of its three gates charmed alike my sight 
and fancy. “Before honour is humility” — and here the proverb 
is translated into architecture. You must pass through the gate 
of humility, and the gate of virtue, before emerging through 
the gate of honour. Strange that the beneficent founder of 
this college, like Dr. Faust, in Germany, should have left his 
name to legend-makers and fabulists, and so to comedy, and the 
“ Merry Wives of Windsor.” 

The noble twin of Oxford is certainly inferior in the ap- 
pearance which she first presents to a stranger, and yet, from 
the first, the chapel of King’s is a superb sight, which even 
Oxford might almost grudge to her sister. I greatly regretted 
reaching Cambridge during a vacation, when comparatively few 
of the gownsmen were on the spot. Still, having become so 
familiar with academic manners, in Oxford, it seemed hardly 
necessary to do more than survey the still-life of Cambridge, in 
order to understand it as well. The diversities between the 
Universities are indeed many, and all my prepossessions are in 
favour of Oxford ; and yet, after a brief external survey of her 
rival, and much conversation with some of her loyal sons, I can 
easily understand their attachment to her, and the pride they 
take in her reputation, as well as their firm conviction of her 
superiority. To an American, indeed, the late election of so 
unfit a person as Prince Albert to be their Chancellor, is a sur- 
prising thing ; and it is no very bright omen, for the University, 
that the prince already aims to shape it, as near as possible, after 
the similitude of Bonn, his own garlicky, blouse-wearing, and 
pipe-smoking Alma Mater , in Teutschland. But, on the other 
hand, the spirited resistance which was made to that measure, in 
bold opposition even to the known wishes of a beloved Queen, is 
instanced, by many Cantabrigians, as a proof of devotion ’ to 
great principles, of which they have reason to be proud. They 
have a thousand better reasons for being proud of their Univer- 
sity, and would that their Chancellor, who is otherwise so well 
qualified, had the power to appreciate and feel them half as warm- 
ly as many an American does, from the depth of his soul ! 


THE JOHNIANS, 


279 


Cambridge struck me as an older and less modernized place 
than Oxford. Its streets are a labyrinth, and many of them 
present the appearance of Continental, rather than of Insular 
Europe. One of the first things that struck me was the conduit 
erected by the same “old Hobson” whom Milton celebrates, and 
from whom comes the adage of “ Hobson’s choice.” He was a 
carrier, and kept horses to let, but made the Cantabs take the 
horse that stood next the stable-door whenever they came to hire 
He certainly was a remarkable man, for what other carrier was 
ever consigned to immortality by a monument in Cambridge, 
by a practical proverb, and by a memorial in the verse of such a 
poet as Milton ? 

As the means of information respecting Cambridge are in 
everybody’s hands, and as the picturesque of its colleges and 
grounds is familiar from engravings, I shall spare my reader 
the trouble of details which might seem a repetition of those 
of Oxford. In St. John’s college, which its own men are 
accused of considering the University, I found the chapel, 
though small and plain, a most attractive place. Its “ non-juror 
windows,” and other memorials, revive many historical names. 
I know not why the Johnians have received the Pindaric epithet 
of Swine , but so it is ; and the peculiarly pretty bridge, span- 
ning the Cam, which unites its quadrangles and halls, has 
accordingly won the sportive name of the “ Isthmus of Sues.” 
In the very pleasant grounds adjacent, I plucked a leaf from the 
silver-beech, said to have been planted by Henry Martyn, and 
breathed a blessing on his memory. A fellow of Trinity kindly 
devoted himself to showing me the attractions of his college, 
and they are very great. The library is a Valhalla of literary 
heroes, the sons of Trinity, whose busts adorn the alcoves : and 
the statue of Byron, by Thorwaldsen, is a superb addition to its 
treasures of art, which, on the whole, will do no harm here, 
excluded as it was from Westminster Abbey, by a virtuous 
abhorrence of the bold blasphemer whom it represents, and thus 
stamped as deep with infamy as it is otherwise clothed with 
attractiveness. Among the relics of the collection, there were 
two which any man must behold with reverence : a lock of 
Sir Isaac Newton’s hair, and the original manuscripts of Para- 
dise Lost, and of Lycidas ! Then to the chapel— that chapol 
which ever since I read “ the Records of a Good Man’s Life,” 
in school-boy days, I had longed to see, and where I had often 
wished it had been my lot to pray, in college life. In the 


280 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


ante-chapel*, there was that statue of Newton, so beautifully 
described by the author, as arresting the melancholy attentions 
of a consumptive youth, as he passed it, for the last time, in his 
surplice, and confessed that this had been too much his idol, in 
that house of God, filling his enthusiasm with the worship of 
genius, when he should have thought only of his Maker. I 
shall never forget the thrills of excited imagination with which I 
received some of my first impressions of Cambridge, in reading 
that story of Singleton : and now they all revived as I stood 
upon the spot. 

Among the attractions of the small colleges, I must not omit 
to mention the chapel of Jesus College, which has lately under- 
gone a thorough restoration, and presents one of the most 
beautiful specimens of revived mediaevalism in art which I have 
ever seen. It is the work of an accomplished gentleman of the 
college, assisted to some extent by the voluntary contributions of 
undergraduates. Nothing of the kind which I saw in Oxford 
can compare with this exquisite Oratory. I went to Christ’s 
college and saw Milton’s mulberry — a pleasant memorial of 
his best days ; the days when he was the “ lady of his college ” 
for youthful comeliness, and the man of his college for the 
genius that produced Lycidas, and for the unsoured feelings that 
could yet appreciate “ the high embowed roofs,” and the 
“ studious cloisters” by which he was there surrounded. Happy 
would it have been for him, had he kept that youthful heart ! 
The mulberry is propped up like an old man on his staff, and 
shielded from the weather by a leaden surtout, but must soon 
cease to be the last living thing that connects with the name of 
Milton. 

What a place is Cambridge, when its minor colleges suggest 
such names ! As I passed what was formerly Bennet college, 
I thought of Cowper’s lines on his brother. There, too, was 
Pembroke, suggesting thoughts of Bramhall and of Andrewes — 
of Andrewes whom even Milton could praise, albeit he was a 
prelate. There was Peterhouse, reminding me of good old 
Cosin. More than all — there was little Caius (pronounced 
Keys) where Jeremy Taylor, the poor sizar and the barber’s 
son, passed so often to and fro, beneath its quaint old gates, 
bearing a soul within him, which in after years he poured forth, 
like another Chrysostom, and made a treasure for all time. I 
am sorry to say there is another college there, which suggests the 
odious name of Cromwell, the man who kindled the fiery coals 


king’s college. 281 

in which the golden heart of Taylor, and the hearts of thousands 
more, were well refined, and seven times purified. 

The Fitzwilliam Museum is a noble collection of antique 
sculpture and architectural relics, with a library and paintings, 
and has been housed superbly in a building, which is a great 
ornament to Cambridge, although built, in modern taste, and in 
Grecian style, suiting the things it contains better than the 
place which contains it. I received far more pleasure, however, 
from a visit to the celebrated round church, which has been 
lately restored, and whose name, St. Sepulchre, refers it to the 
era of the Crusades. But how shall I speak of King’s College 
Chapel? I was not so fortunate as to see it filled with its 
white-robed scholars, but its own self was sight enough. “ Such 
awful perspective” — indeed! Such tints from such windows — 
such carvings — such a roof ! It springs and spreads above you, 
light as the spider’s web, and yet it is all massive stone, and its 
construction is an architectural miracle. I climbed to the roof, 
and walked upon that same vaulting, as upon a solid stone- 
pavement. It is put together in mathematical figures, and on 
principles purely scientific ; but modem architects are puzzled 
to explain them. Above this, there is another roof, which is 
exposed to the weather, and from which one enjoys a fine view of 
the town and the surrounding country. The walks and avenues 
of limes, which stretch before King’s, and which connect with 
the grounds of Trinity and St. John’s, are inferior to nothing in 
Oxford, and are generally pronounced by Cambridge men supe- 
rior to Christ church meadows and the walks of Magdalen. I 
strolled among some magnificent limes in the grounds of Trinity, 
which might well apologise for a student’s opinion, that no other 
college in the world has such grounds and trees. As for the 
river Cam, its beautiful bridges, I am sorry to say, are reflected 
in a very sluggish and dirty tide, called “silvery” only by poetical 
license. 

Dining in the hall of Trinity, I was overwhelmed by the 
sublime associations of such a place, as illustrated by the por- 
traits around me. Everywhere were the pictures of great 
historic sons of this college; here was Pearson, and there was 
Barrow ; and before us, as we sat at meat, were Bacon and Sir 
Isaac Newton. What children has this Mother borne ; not for 
herself, but for all mankind ! And thus much I will say for 
Cambridge, as compared with Oxford, that whereas amid the 
architectural glories of the latter, one almost forgets the glory 


282 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


of her sons, you are reminded, at every turn in Cambridge, that 
her chief jewels are the great men she has brought forth. One 
cannot give her all the credit, indeed : she has been singularly 
fortunate ; but when hers are Bacon, and Newton, and Milton, 
and Taylor, and stars, in constellations, of scarcely minor magni- 
tude, what university in Christendom can call itself superior % 
If Granta has her peer, there is nothing that is more than that 
on earth. 


QUEEN KATHERINE. 285 

of the Sunday I spent there, and of one or two little things that 
deeply affected me. 

While the bells were thundering for Morning Service, I stood in 
the nave, wholly lost in contemplation of its plain, but massive 
majesty. A train of children entered, with their teachers, evi- 
dently a Sunday-school. I watched the little procession as it 
wound its way amid the columns, and turned to the left of the 
choir. Following them, I saw them enter the choir, by a small 
side-door, and as they stepped into it, every little foot fell on a 
slab of stone, in the centre of which was a little brass plate, not 
so large as one’s hand. When all had gone in, and were kneel- 
ing in their meek array, I drew near, and stooped down to see 
over whose dust they had been treading. I read a few words * but 
they thrilled me like electricity — “Queen Katherine, 1536!” 
Here, then, lies that proud daughter of Arragon, whose mournful 
history has left its mark upon nations, and upon Christendom ! 
The scene in Shakspeare rose before me — Pope — Cardinals—* 
Princes — Henry VIII. This stone covers all, and peasants’ babes 
trip over it as lightly as if the life that lies extinguished there, 
had been as simple as their own ! 

In the corresponding spot, on the other side, lies just such 
another slab, over another sepulchre. The body has been re- 
moved to Westminster Abbey; but its first repose was here. 
The brass has been torn out ; but it once read, “ Queen Mary, 
1587” — for here the poor Queen of Scots was laid, headless, and 
festering in her cerements, six months after that fatal day, in the 
neighbouring Fotheringay Castle. The date of her interment 
offers the best apology for the severity she had suffered, although 
nothing can excuse the sin of Elizabeth. It was the year before the 
Spanish Armada ; and it is now known that she had, two years pre- 
viously , given her kingdom to Philip II., inviting that bloody bigot 
to set up his Inquisition among her Scottish subjects, and exclud- 
ing her own son from his right. Such was her crime against 
her own people, aimed, however, more especially at England, 
by her fanatical zeal. Between these solemn tombs of a Queen 
of France, and a daughter of Spain, I worshipped that day, and 
received the Holy Communion, to my comfort. The anthem was 
a familiar strain, from Mozart, which we sing in America to the 
Christmas hymn, set to words from the Psalter — Quam magniji- 
cata opera tua ! The Bishop of Peterborough was the preacher, 
and I heard him again at Evening Service. As you leave the 
nave through the western entrance, you see an odd portrait set 


286 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


against the wall, that of a grave-digger, spade in hand. Under- 
neath, you read — “ R. Scarlett, died 1594, aged 98.” He buried 
the two Queens, and the inhabitants of the town twice over , as 
you learn from uncouth rhymes subjoined. Was ever such a 
“ king of spades 

Next morning I saw “ Lincoln, on its sovereign hill,” and 
heard the Great Tom — “ swinging slow with sullen roar.” The 
restorations going on in the choir had driven the service into a 
little chapel, near the west end ; but the singing was very sweet, 
and solemn, though entirely without ceremony. I devoted the 
morning to the survey of this model of art, which I like the bet- 
ter, because it is, in part, a monument of the Anglican Liberties, 
as they were maintained in the middle ages, against the Roman 
Pontiff. The central tower is the work of brave old Bishop 
Grostete, in the thirteenth century. He was the predecessor of 
Wycliffe and Cranmer, in defying the Pope, and in spite of papal 
anathemas, he died in peaceful possession of his See. All honour 
to his pious memory. 

It is the custom to admire the west front of this cathedral 
extravagantly ; but I confess that with all that there is to admire 
in its separate parts, the whole seems, to me, ill-composed. The 
towers, more particularly, strike me as possessing no unity with 
the mass of architecture, behind which they rise, as from a 
screen, whose broad rectangular frontage detracts from the appa- 
rent height. It is only as seen from the foot of the hill, that the 
whole architectural bulk affects the eye sublimely, towering 
majestically over the town, which crouches at its base. The 
whole pile affords to the architectural student every luxury of his 
art, both within and without ; but such were the desecrations which 
it suffered from the Cromwellians, that few of those gorgeous 
shrines, for which it was formerly distinguished, remain, to de- 
light the ordinary visiter. In the cloisters have lately been dis- 
covered some Roman remains : a mosaic pavement, in particular, 
such as the traveller is so often shown in Italy. “ The Jew’s 
house,” so called, a relic of mediaeval art, was more interesting to 
me, as connected with the legend of the little martyr who lies 
in the cathedral, and who is celebrated by Chaucer, in the tale 
of the Prioress. 

The City of York makes an imposing show, crowned by the 
glories of its vast minster, and walled in, like Chester, with 
ancient ramparts, which nearly encircle the town. How singular 
the reflection that Constantine the Great was a native Yorkshire- 


YORKMINSTER 


287 


man, born in this town, in A. D. 272 ! Here, too, his father died, 
in A.D. 307, and he succeeded to the empire, going forth to re- 
form pagan Rome, as I trust the spirit of England has even now 
gone forth to do the same for Rome papal. Here, too, died 
the Emperor Severus vainly striving to reconcile his sons Cara- 
calla and Geta. Among the monuments of the Roman Forum, 
these names afterward reminded me of York ; while, across the 
broad Atlantic, the immense city where I had been brought up, 
had always been to me, her memorial. How many were the re- 
flections with which I walked the whole circuit of her walls, and 
surveyed the town, the ancient castle, and the surrounding 
scenery, and then sailed upon the river beneath ! The beautiful 
ruins of an old abbey, near the river, still delight the anti- 
quarian ; but after cursorily surveying these, I hastened to the 
cathedral. 

The western front of the minster is worthy of its extraordi- 
nary fame. The semi-barbarian features of many of the cathe- 
drals are here superseded by what might seem to be the idealized 
perfection of their rude details. The unity which was wanting in 
Lincoln, seemed to be here complete and entire ; and the rich and 
delicate tracery which invests it has the appearance of an elaborate 
tissue of lace, fitted over the stone after the substantial part was 
complete. From other points of view, the impression is less of 
grace, and more of majesty. The whole is sublime in its effect 
beyond that of any other cathedral that I ever saw ; and even in 
Milan, I could not but say to myself, as I gazed on its wonderful 
Duomo — “ after all, it is, as compared with York, only a beauti- 
ful monster.” There is something about it which realizes the 
idea of a cathedral, in its model form ; and this is a charm that is 
wanting in many others of its class. In its ample choir, I was 
more affected by the service than at any other place, with the 
exception perhaps of Canterbury, so far as it depended on the 
elevating influence of mere architecture, consciously felt and em- 
ployed to ennoble the sacrifice of praise and prayer. With the 
survey of the chapter-house, cloisters, and tombs, I was less inter- 
ested than with repeated efforts to take in the vast sweep of the 
interior, and to animate it with visions of what it may yet be- 
come, when Deans and Canons wake up to the immense responsi- 
bility of their opportunities to work for the glory of God. The 
tone of the service, and the swell of the organ, even now, give 
wings to worship, when the anthem rises beneath this lofty vault, 
and dies away in the profound depth of the nave, or spreads itself 


288 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


amid aisles and columns, with multiplied reverberations and undula- 
tions of harmony ; but oh ! what might not be its heavenly effect, 
were the choir and nave all one, and filled with kneeling thou- 
sands, lifting up their voice with one accord in the overwhelming 
common-prayer of the Anglican Church ! A friend of mine, 
who was once present, in Yorkminster, on a Sunday, realized 
something very near what I strove to imagine. The congregation 
was swelled by the presence of several regiments of soldiers, who 
appeared to take part in the worship, and whose gay uniforms, 
as they knelt on the mosaic floor, received a richer splendour 
from the tinted lights that flowed down from lofty windows, 
where meek saints and mighty princes seem to live again in the 
lustre of their portraiture. 

At early start next morning, a short railway trip, and then a 
stage 'oach drive of two miles, and then a walk through the 

fields, brought me to S parsonage, before breakfast, where a 

kindb welcome awaited me from my Malvern acquaintances. A 
day bad been planned for me by the kind lady of the parsonage, 
and though it threatened rain, she laughed at the idea of aban- 
doning it on that account. An American lady would scarcely 
have thought of it, even in fair weather, as the excursion involv- 
ed not a little exercise of the foot. Off we went in a pony-car- 
riage to Ripon, where I had time for a hasty inspection of the 
minster, lately made a cathedral. It is a severe specimen of Early 
English, and affords much to interest the student ; but very little 
to make a story of, unless we adopt Camden’s explanation of St. 
Wilfrids’ needle in the crypt. It is a narrow perforation of the 
masonry, through which ladies were sometimes required to pass, 
when, as Fuller says, “ those who could not thread the needle 
pricked their own credit.” 

We went through the grounds of Studley Royal, enjoying a 
diversified view of beautiful park scenery, till we came to the 
neighbourhood of Fountains Abbey, and exchanged our drive for 
a walk. We passed through woods, and by little lakes, and over 
rustic bridges, and came at last into a walk richly embowered 
with trees, along a height, where the foliage completely screened 
the view below. Our fair conductress promised us a lunch at a 
little halting-place called Anne Boleyn’s Seat. I did not tell her 
that I had foreknowledge of the trick she meant to play upon 
me ; but I sincerely wish that I had never heard of it, for my own 
6ake as well as hers. Arrived at the spot, we sat down to rest, 
when suddenly the lady flung open a door, and before us w.is 


FOUNTAINS ABBEY. 


289 


such a view as can be seen nowhere else in the world. We were 
balconied, in a lofty window, and below was the beautiful valley 
and meadow : at the extremity of which, rise the ancient walls, 
chapel window, and tower of Fountains Abbey — the most poeti- 
cal ruin in existence. All Italy has nothing to show, that can be 
compared with it for beauty, especially if we take into account 
the extraordinary charms of the wooded steeps that surround it, 
and of the green velvet mead, from which it lifts itself like the 
creation of enchantment. Its architecture is vast and majestic 
in scale, and the ivy has contrived to festoon and mantle its 
magnificence, in such wise as to lend it a grace it never could 
have possessed even in its first glory. There is a more sylvan 
charm about Tintern. Fountains Abbey is the perfection of 
artificial beauty, for even its surrounding nature is impressed with 
a look of long and complete subjugation to the hand of consum- 
mate art. 

I assured our fair enchantress, that although I had heard of 
this surprise before, her playfulness had not been lost on me. I 
had expected to enjoy it only under the humdrum operation of 
an ordinary guide. She had heightened the effect by her talis- 
manic touch and artistic air, and I was free to confess that the 
effect produced was such, that “ the half had not been told me.” 
A little streamlet runs through the meadow, like a silver thread 
upon emerald ; and nothing which a painter could wish is want- 
ing to make the scene a picture of delight. I could not but 
think of the still waters, and the green pastures, and the glorious 
mansions of a better world. 

The Abbey was Cistercian, as the fat valley in which it stands 
might indicate, according to the rhyme : — 

“ Bernard the vales, as Benedict the steeps, 

But towering cities did Loyola love.” 

It was founded, in fact, in the time of St. Bernard, under the 
first impulses communicated to Europe by his vast enthusiasm. 
But it is in vain that we look for any traces of his asceticism, in 
the luxurious splendour of every portion of this noble pile. 
Here you enter the lordly refectory; you pass to the ample 
kitchen, and ascend to the long range of dormitories. What 
prince on earth is better lodged ? The chapter-house is on the 
same scale of dignity ; and the cloisters are a long perspective of 
pillared arches, through which the eye can scarcely penetrate to 
the end. But the church, with its elaborate chapels, of which 

13 


290 


IHFRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


nearly half the pillars are standing in their gracefulness, beggar3 
description. Its floor is green turf, and its walls are hung with 
living tapestry ; but it seems still a vast cathedral, and the more 
beautiful, for its heavenly vault, and its windows, opening in all 
their rich variety of form, bright glimpses of wood and sky. 
Everything is in keeping, and the whole is such an epitome of the 
monastic system as suggests alike its glory and its shame. The 
excavations are still going on, and like those of Pompeii, they are 
revealing the most minute and tell-tale particulars of monastic 
life. One cannot altogether regret that such establishments are 
of the past, and yet the experiment of their reform should have 
been fairly tried, before destruction made it forever impossible 
to restore them to noble and pious uses. 

Near the Abbey is a yew-tree of great antiquity, beneath 
which, tradition says, the first colony of monks assembled, and 
planned their future home. In a secluded spot, a little further 
on, I came to Fountains Hall, a pleasant manorial residence. 
It was built in the time of the first Stuart, and, I am sorry to add, 
of materials, quarried in the old Abbey. Such being the case, I 
am glad it is not mine. Sacrilege is so fatal a sin, that I hardly 
dared to take away a bit of moss from the Abbey walls ; and to 
remove a cubic inch of its masonry, was a liberty from which I 
shrank, as a sort of irreverence to God. 

Adieu to Fountains — but the scene will never leave my men- 
tal vision, which will retain as tenaciously, also, the recollection 
of those whose company enabled me to enter into the spirit of 
the scene, as I never can when alone. Reluctantly bidding them 
farewell, I went by rail to South Shields, on a visit to an estima- 
ble M.P., whose acquaintance I had made in London. He is a 
man of great natural refinement, and of very superior accom- 
plishments, having greatly distinguished himself in early life, at 
Oxford, though his retiring disposition has kept him from the 
ambitious dignities which he might easily have commanded 
Though there are few, in England, to whom I became more 
attached, I must add that it was neither from political nor reli- 
gious affinities. He is as much of a dissenter as a churchman 
can well be, and as little of a John Bull as an Englishman can 
well be ; but it is my creed, that none but the most narrow-minded 
mortals limit their society to those who share their own likes and 
dislikes, and never has my contempt for Sallust’s rule of friend- 
ship been more richly rewarded than in the relations which I 
fovmed with Mr. I . With his liberal feelings towards 


DURHAM. 


291 


America, I was particularly gratified ; and it was pleasant indeed to 
listen to this estimable man, as he generously eulogized several of 
my countrymen, whom he had made his friends. Most attractive 
too was his unassuming piety. His Greek Testament was his 
familiar companion, and he was sometimes betrayed into scholarly 
criticisms of its text, which I could not always adopt, but which 
I was forced to admire, as drawn from stores of classical knowl- 
edge and accuracy. I felt it a great privilege to be his guest, and 
fell asleep in my chamber, full of happy reflections on the 
pleasures of the day, and lulled by the sounds of the sea, which 
breaks on the boundaries of his demesne. The morning fight 
came to my window over the German Ocean, for the King of 
Denmark is next neighbour to my friend in that direction. 

I was now among the collieries, but had no desire to know 
anything about them. I saw the mouths of the doleful pits 
which descend to these human burrows, and to think of the 
miserable population below, was enough ! There they five, and 
die, and are buried while they live, and are far more wretched, 
I should imagine, than the servile class, in most cases, among us. 
The amelioration of life in the collieries, is by no means neglected 
however. England is alive to the spiritual and temporal destitu- 
tion of her poor, of every condition ; and happy will it be for us, 
when our national evils are as deeply felt as those of England 
are by Englishmen ; when they are as temperately and freely dis- 
cussed, and as boldly submitted to an enlightened spirit of pro- 
gress and reform. 

With my estimable friend, I visited Durham, its cathedral and 
University, and enjoyed great privileges in so doing, as the result 
of his kindness. On our way, he pointed out the secluded and 
saintly Jarrow, and the tower of Bernard Gilpin’s Church. In 
this neighbourhood occur two names that startle an American : 
he comes to Franklin , and to Washington , little villages which 
have imparted their names to hundreds of places in America, by 
first giving them to two really great men. With us, places are 
named from individuals ; but in England, the reverse is more 
frequently the case. 

“Stupendous” — is the epithet for the cathedral of Durham. 
It is the poetry of the frigid zone of architecture, as Milan 
cathedral is of its tropics. The first impressions, on entering, 
were instinctively those of the patriarch — “ how dreadful is this 
place — this is none other than the House of God.” At York, I 
had said — ‘ this is the gate of heaven.’ Here an overpowering 


292 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


solemnity brooded over every thought, and I less admired than 
wondered. One thing was most pleasing : there is no screen, and 
the eye ranges through nave and choir, unrestrained, to the altar 
itself, to which a bas-relief of the last supper, gives a fine effect. 
Under the guidance of Canon Townsend, who had lately return- 
ed from his most primitive visit to the Pope, we surveyed the 
entire cathedral and its adjoining courts, all alike builded for 
everlasting, if the solidity and grandeur of its masonry be any 
index of its design. We visited “the Galilee,” and the tomb of 
the venerable Bede, the “ nine altars,” at the eastern end, and the 
tomb of St. Cuthbert. Also, the chapter-house, hallowed - by 
the names of Aidan and Finan, those apostles of the North, who 
came forth from Iona to illuminate our Saxon ancestors. I pity 
the man who claims no kin with their ancient faith and piety ! 
They infused into the Church of England many elements of its 
present character, and Bernard Gilpin was their legitimate son, 
even more than Bede himself. 

In the library, we were shown, by the polite dignitary who 
was our guide, many antiquarian and literary curiosities. The 
stole of St. Cuthbert, taken from his coffin, and some needlework 
of the sister of Alfred, were of the number, and divers manu- 
scripts, on vellum, of great beauty, and one the autograph of 
Bede ! Some modern copes, of the time of Charles First, were 
shown us, as having been worn in Divine Service, in the cathe- 
dral, according to the rubric, till Warburton laid them aside. 
We also visited the University, which now fills the old castle of 
Durham. This castle was built by William the Conqueror, and 
was long the residence of the Bishops, as Lords of the Palati- 
nate. Its old Norman chapel is very interesting, and the modem 
fittings are in good taste throughout, and turn it to good account. 
In one of the prebendal houses, we found the Bishop of Exeter, 
a prelate of great distinction, and celebrated for making warm 
friends and bitter foes. Canon Townsend gave us our lunch, at 
his own table, and warmly eulogized the American Church, 
which he designs to visit. He also praised our country and its 
achievements. Ilis burning desire seems to be to unite all 
Christians, once more, in one holy fellowship of faith and wor- 
ship, and it was in this spirit that he visited the Vatican, and ex- 
horted the Pope to repent. It was the last testimony to Pius 
Ninth, before he dared to commit that damning sin against 
Christian charity, on the 8th of December, 1854. In my opinion, 
Canon Townsend need not be ashamed of having preached the 
Gospel at Rome also. 


EPISCOPAL THRONE. 


293 


I crossed the river Wear, and gained from its well-wooded 
bank, the best view of the cathedral. It rises on the opposite 
bank, high over the stream, like part of the rock on which it is 
built. It presents the appearance of entire “ unity with itself.” 
Massive and ponderous dignity invests the whole pile, and with 
the advantage of its deep descent to the river, I know not where 
to look for anything that seems at once so fixed to the earth, and 
yet so aspiring in its gigantic stretch towards heaven. The 
cathedral at Fribourg, in Switzerland, not only lacks its grandeur, 
but is too far from the edge of the steep, on which it stands, to 
derive much character from it. Durham, on the contrary, grows 
out of the cliff itself, and it is hard to say where the natural 
architecture terminates, and art begins. 

I heard the service, in the cathedral, and it was effectively per- 
formed. From preference, I occupied the extremity of the nave, 
and enjoyed its distant effect. The Episcopal throne, in this 
cathedral, is a great curiosity. Had I not been told it was 
a throne, I should have said it was a gallery, or orchestra. Its 
style is altogether curious, and unique ; but I should think his 
Lordship would prefer any place in the cathedral, to such a 
strange eminence. I left Durham, with great regret that I 
could not linger for a long time, amid its venerable and sacred 
attractions. 

A good portion of the succeeding day was given to Newcastle- 
upon-Tyne, its smutty old-town, and its spruce and showy new- 
town. Here is Norman England on one hand, and England of 
the Reform-bill on the other. Standing upon one of its lofty 
bridges, I surveyed the town, and the river, and felt more pleased 
with what I saw than I had supposed it possible for me to be 
with such a coal-hole. 

Out of the hole I climbed, however, to the height on which 
stands its old castle, built by Robert Curthose, son of William 
the Conqueror. It is a dingy tower, at best ; but massive, and 
full of historic interest. Its chapel, only a few yards square, and 
dimly lighted, is remarkable for some of the finest specimens ex- 
tant, of the Saxon arch. Its parts are distinctly marked, as 
chancel, nave, sacristy, and the like ; but it is more like the cha- 
pel of an Inquisition, than of a royal castle. Several rooms in 
the castle are filled with Roman relics, all found in the neigh- 
bourhood of the town; and often, when I afterwards visited 
Rome, and thought of this far distant place, did it give me new 
ideas of her ancient power, to reflect upon her identity here and 


294 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND 


there, and upon the skill in overcoming difficulties, which, in that 
barbarian day, made her to be felt as really upon the Tyne, as 
upon the Tiber. I saw very soon the same marks of Roman con- 
quest, far away in Scotland, near Elgin, and Inverness. 

And to Scotland I now made my way, without stopping. Fly- 
ing through Northumberland, I caught many glimpses of its 
scenery and antiquities, about Warkworth and Alnwick. Far 
out at sea, I spied the lofty bulk of Holy Island, or Lindisfarne, 
the Iona of England. I instinctively bared my head to it. At 
length I sighted Berwick-upon-Tweed, the Amen Corner of Eng- 
land, where the Church ceases, and the Kirk begins. Anon, I 
was over the Border. 





/ 


CHAPTER XXX III. 


The Lakes and the Lakers . 

As I am now detailing my “ Impressions of England/’ I must 
leave out my Scottish chapters, for Scotland is far too rich in mate- 
rial to be smuggled into the world under any cover except its own. 
After a most interesting visit to this romantic land, I again saw 
England as I approached the Cumberland mountains, at Eccle- 
fechan, and in spite of my delight in Caledonia, I somehow felt 
that it was home. I reached “ Gretna Green ” from a direction 
the opposite of that which is the fashion for runaways, and hence 
saw nothing of “ the blacksmith but I was informed that he 
duly posts himself at the station when the train approaches from 
the other direction, and very frequently finds customers. It is 
not now as in the days of posting ; and if a brace of lovers can 
make sure of a train in advance of pursuers, they are quite safe. 
The next train may bring the frantic friends and parents ; but 
the wedding is already performed, according to the barbarous law 
of North Britain. It has been remarked as something singular, 
if not disgraceful, that several who have risen to be Lord-Chan- 
cellors of the southern kingdom, were, in early life, married in 
this way. After a moment’s pause at the Gretna station, we were 
whirled across the Sark, with a glimpse of the Solway, and soon 
I was in “ merrie Carlisle.” I entered it, thanks be to Bishop 
Percy, with special thoughts of “ Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, 
and William of Cloudeslee.” The poetry of the town is, in fact, 
concentrated in that ballad of ballads. As a border town, it has 
always been subject to those fearful scenes and tragedies, which 
only war creates : and its history is a romance, from the days of 
the Conquest to those of the Pretender, whose flag once waved 
on its walls. It is charmingly situated, and well watered by its 
three rivers ; but its castle and its cathedral are its chief objects 


296 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


of interest, and offer little that can be described with effect, after 
a review of more striking specimens of their kind. Among the 
tombs in the latter, is that of Archdeacon Paley, the moralist , 
who “ could not afford to keep a conscience.” I did not regard 
it with any great emotion. The adjacent Deanery, at one time 
inhabited by Bishop Percy, was more interesting to me, for what- 
ever he may have been as a bishop, I cannot doubt that his taste 
and industry in literature have produced a vast result in the 
poetry and letters of his native tongue 1 have often amused 
myself, not only with his “ballads” themselves, but with an 
effort to trace their immediate and remote effects on the taste, 
and even upon the genius of England. They are very striking, 
and prove what may be the lasting results of a very humble sort 
of literary enterprise, when it is founded on “ truths that wake 
to perish never.” 

I was in the region of the Lakes, and felt upon me already the 
powerful influences which its great poets have left it for an heri- 
tage forever. The noble range of the Cumberlands seemed to 
lift their monumental heads, in memory of Southey and Words- 
worth. I went to Kendal, and sighted the castle where Katherine 
Parr was born, but was glad to take the earliest train to Bewness. 
Welcome was the sight of Windermere, brightly reflecting the 
evening sky, and encircled by an army of mountains, lifting their 
bristling pikes as if to defend it, like a virgin sister in her loveli- 
ness. Who can forget Dr. Arnold’s enthusiastic return to this 
dear spot, from the Continent : his just comparison of its charms 
with those of foreign scenes, and his close noting of the very 
minutes that lingered as he hasted to his home at Fox How ? 
To me, there is all the heart of poetry in his honest effusion of 
genuine English feeling. “ I see the Old Man and the Langdale 
Pikes, rising behind the nearer hills so beautifully ! We open on 
Windermere, and vain it is to talk of any earthly beauty ever 
equalling this country, in my eyes. No Mola di Gaeta, no Valley 
of the Velino, no Salerno or Vietri can rival, to me, this Vale of 
Windermere, and of the Rotha. Here it lies in the perfection 
of its beauty, the deep shadows on the unruffled water; and 
mingling with every form, and sound, and fragrance, comes the 
full thought of domestic affections, and of national and of Chris- 
tian : here is our own house and home : here are our own coun- 
try’s laws and language: and here is our English Church!” 
Good ! glorious ! every word. I can feel it all, and the last 
words more than he did. It is to the Church that England owes 


LOWOOD INN. 


297 


all the rest, and yet that palladium (I hate the word) of England’s 
holiest, and dearest, and best peculiarities, he would fain have 
Germanized ! I believe, in my heart, he was better than his 
theories, and would have been the first to shrink from his own 
dreams of reform, had he lived to see them coming into shape as 
realities. I cannot but follow his speaking memoranda : — 
“ Arrived at Bowness, 8.20; left at 8.31 ; passing Ragrigg Gate, 
8.37 ; over Troutbeck Bridge, 8.51 ; here is Ecclerigg, 8.58 ; and 
here Lowood Inn, 9.04 and 30 seconds ! ” No fast man, at the 
Derby, ever held his watch more breathlessly ; he was speeding 
home, and there he was in twenty minutes more, at his own 
“ mended gate,” wife and darlings all round papa, and so ends 
his journal! Oh, what so enviable as a home, just here? My 
own is far away — and I stop at Lowood Inn, grateful for such 
inns as England only affords, and proposing to spend such a Sun- 
day as England only hallows. I am not forgetful of my own 
dear land ; I love her Hudson, as I can never love even an Eng- 
lish lake ; but the janglings of a Sunday in America, the unutter- 
able wretchedness of perpetuated quarrels among Christians, and 
all the sadness of religious disunion, in its last stage of social 
disorganization, take away my sense of repose, when I survey 
an American landscape, and the spires of our villages ; and who 
can measure the indifference, the atheism, and the godless con- 
tempt for truth which all this breeds? Good Lord ! when shall 
this plague of locusts disappear from our sky ? When shall all 
Christians who love Christ in truth and soberness, agree to love 
one another ? 

At Lowood Inn I spent such a Sunday, as I had promised my- 
self, at St. Asaph. A morning and evening walk, by the lake, 
was its morning and evening charm, and calm, sweet enjoyment 
of the service was its substantial blessing. Here, Southey’s words 
came forcibly to mind, as I recalled the common worship, in 
which my beloved friends, at home, were uniting with me ; the 
Prayer-book its blessed telegraph ! 

“ Oh, hold it holy ! it will be a bond 
Of love and brotherhood, when all beside 
Hath been dissolved ; and though wide ocean roll 
Between the children of one fatherland, 

This shall be their communion : they shall send, 

Linked in one sacred feeling, at pne hour, 

In the same language, the same prayer to heaven, 

And each remembering each in piety, 

Pray for the other’s welfare.” 

13 * 


298 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


Early on Monday morning, in a fairy-like little steamer, I made 
a circuit of the lake, enjoying fine weather, and delightful views. 
The clouds took the shape of everything beautiful during the day, 
now hanging over the “ Pikes,” like legions of angels, and now 
building themselves up into domes and cathedrals, upon the sum- 
mits of the everlasting hills. As for the lake itself, it is some- 
thing between Lake George and Cayuga Lake : its scenery in 
some parts, even finer than the finest of the one, and its tamer 
parts, almost always equal to the best of the other. Lake 
George, however, in its exceeding wildness, has its own special 
charm for me ; and Windermere is too artificially beautiful, on 
the whole, to rival it. Towards noon, I went, by coach, to 
Grassmere, passing through Ambleside, and by the late residence 
of Wordsworth, and enjoying the views of Bydalmere, and 
Knab Scaur, and then of Grassmere itself, with its sweet church, 
deep in the. vale. The inn at Grassmere is well placed, on a 
slight ascent from the valley, and provides a toothsome repast for 
the tourist. I went on horse-back, over hill and dale, to “ Dun- 
geon Ghyll,” a cataract well known to readers of Wordsworth, 
but less interesting in itself, though curious as well as pretty, than 
the scenery through which one passes to get there. The moun- 
tain ranges, and peaks, as they come into sight, and seem to shift 
their positions, are sufficient, I should think, to make the region 
ever new in its peculiar attractions, especially when one takes 
into account the endless variety imparted to such scenes by the 
different seasons, hours of the day, states of the atmosphere, and 
conditions of sky and clouds. Wise poets were these Lakers ! 
And how “Kit North” must have revelled in these palaces of 
nature ! As I slowly returned, I caught my last glimpse of Win- 
dermere, and then saw the vale of Grassmere, in its evening 
beauty. Arrived at the churchyard, I sought the grave of 
Wordsworth. A plain grave, and his name merely. The rivers 
rushing by lulls his repose. A carriage drove up, and seeing a 
female mourner approach, attended by a servant, or waiting- 
maid, I withdrew, and pretended to be otherwise engaged. The 
lady scattered flowers on the grave of the poet, and stood there 
awhile, musing. It was his widow; and when she had left 
the sacred spot, I returned, and admired the fragrant and beauti- 
ful tokens of her affection, which, as I learned, she every day 
renews. I gathered some wild flowers, growing by the grave, 
and resolved to bear them to Keswick, and leave them on the 
grave of Southey. This pilgrimage I was determined to make, on 


COCKNEYS. 


299 


foot ; and having arranged for my luggage to be sent to a con- 
venient point, I started accordingly, late in the afternoon, with a 
walk of twelve miles before me ; to do which, I gave myself three 
hours for the walking, and one for resting and idling. I expected 
to reach Keswick by early moonlight, for the moon was new, and 
the days long. Mine host thought it too late for a start, after a 
fatiguing day ; but I had practised in Scotland, and knew my 
strength, and the inspiration of the spot was such that I felt no 
weariness. On the contrary, it is impossible to describe the flow 
of spirits with which I began and ended this walk. Passing 
Helm Crag, I decided that the “old woman” on the top, is far 
more like a millenial group, in colossal sculpture, for it greatly 
resembles a lion with a lamb in its embrace. At every step, 
Wordsworth and Southey revive in memory; every pebble seems 
to have attracted their love, and taken its place in their poetry. 
After a long, but gradual ascent, we reach the cairn that covers 
King Dunmail’s bones, and looking back at the charming view, 
say farewell to Grassmere. In the distance, ahead, what looms 
up ? The guide-book says Skiddaw. There once lived Southey ; 
there now he sleeps. As I left this neighbourhood, I observed 
to my surprise, another group on the mountain, in all respects 
like the “ old woman,” only turned the other way. Both are 
formed by loose rocks on the height of the mountain ; but I have 
seen no mention of this one. And now my way lay along the 
base of the “ mighty Helvellyn.” The road was easy to the foot, 
and innumerable are its charms. I came to the lovely Thirlmere, 
or Leatheswater : the views of the surrounding crags, and of the 
water itself, wearing a more beautiful aspect, for the hour ana 
the departing daylight. Blue-bells were everywhere growing by 
the road, in handfulls. I stopped to examine a stone which 
seems to record the death of a Quaker’s favourite horse. A car- 
riage came along, which proved to be full of cockney tourists. 
One of them descended and read, as follows: — “Thirtieth of 
ninth month, 1843 ; 

Fallen from ’is fellow’s side, 

The steed beneath (h)is lying ; 

(H)in ’amess ’ere ’e died, 

’Is (h)only fault was dying.” 

The pathos with which these words were uttered was truly 
Pickwickian, and the step from the sublime to the ridiculous was 
so effectually taken by my feelings, that for a long way beyond, 


300 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


Helvellyn re-echoed to my laughter. Passing Thirlmere, the 
sweet vale of St. John opened a bewitching prospect, and I loved 
it for its name. Leaving it on my right, I then turned toward 
Keswick, and as the last light of day disappeared, there, before 
me, lay Derwentwater, the new moon shedding a tremulous light 
on its bosom. This, then, was Southey’s own Keswick, and 
Skiddaw rose over head ! I slept soundly and sweetly at the 
“ Royal Oak.” 

In the morning, I took a barge, and was rowed round the 
lake, which did not disappoint me. One of the men had been a 
servant of Southey’s, and he told me many anecdotes of his 
master. “ Yonder, it seems to me, I can see him now,” said the 
fellow, “ walking with a book in his hand.” He described him 
as good to the poor, and said, “ he often gave five shillings, at a 
time, to my mother.” In wet weather he still took the air, and 
walked well on clogs. I was much charmed with the islets of 
the lake, and the singular traditions which invest them all with 
so much interest. The romantic stories of the unfortunate 
family of Derwentwater, whose earls were attainted for their 
share in the Pretender’s rebellion, are partly connected with one 
of these islands, and the lake itself seems made for a scene of 
romance. Windermere is not to be compared with it. I was 
rowed to Lodore, and saw “how the water comes down.” 
Sometimes ’tis a mere burlesque of the poem ; but I saw it in full 
force, and entirely justifying all the participles which the genius 
of Southey has contrived to set going, like a cataract, out of the 
fountain of his brain. After this, I swam in the lake, tempted 
to do so by the double attraction of its pellucid waters, and its 
Castalian associations. 

I visited Southey’s grave, in Crosthwaite churchyard. ’Twas 
solemn to see the grass growing, and its tall spears shaking in the 
breeze, over the head of that fine genius, and the heart of that 
good and faithful man. In the church, where he so often prayed, 
a superb statue of the poet lies, at full length, on an altar-tomb. 
I placed in the marble hand the flowers I had brought from the 
grave of Wordsworth, a tribute to their friendship, and a token 
of my homage for both. Great and good men ; they were the 
“lucida sidera” of English literature, in a dark and evil time 
and now that their sweet influence has triumphed over the 
clouds and vapours which obscured their first rising, how calmly 
they shine, in heaven, and brighten the scenes they have left 
behind ! 


GIANT OWEN. 


301 


Greta Hall, the poet’s late residence, stands a little back from 
the road, in the shadow of Skiddaw. I paid a visit to a daughter 
of the bard, who loves to linger near her father’s grave ; and it 
was delightful to observe the simplicity with which she entered 
into the enthusiasm of a pilgrim to that shrine of her affections. 
The aged Mrs. Lovel, whose name is familiar to the readers of 
Coleridge, and his contemporaries, also allowed me to be present- 
ed to her. It was affecting to see a group of Southey’s lovely 
little grand-children with her, in mourning for a mother. They 
are richer in the heritage of his name and character than if they 
were the heirs of the Derwentwaters, and restored to all their 
honours and estates. 

By coach to Penrith, by the vale of St. John, and Hutton- 
moor. On the moor, I saw a cottage, with an inscription too 
deep for me, of which my reader shall have the benefit. It was 
this : — 

“1. W. 

This building’s age, these letters show, 

Though many gaze, yet few will know. 

MD.CCXIX.” 

A Waltonian puzzle in its quaintness, not to speak of the initials! 
Driving by Graystoke, in which is an old town-cross, we had a 
sight of its church and castle. But two odd-looking farm-houses, 
which we passed, presenting at a distance the appearance of forts, 
surprised me more, by their American names, “ Mount Putnam,” 
and “ Bunker-hill.” They were built and named soon after the 
battle: and the whip laughed as he slyly surmised, that the 
Duke of Norfolk, to whom they belong, “must have been afraid 
the ’Mericans were coming over.” At Penrith, I visited the ex- 
traordinary grave in the churchyard, called the Giants. Its his- 
tory is lost in the obscure of antiquity ; but one Owen is said to 
lie there, at full length, the head and footstones being fifteen feet 
apart. The stones are tall needles, of curious form, and covered 

with Runic carvings and unintelligible words. Not far from 
© © 

Penrith, are some ancient caverns, marked by traces of gigantic 
inhabitants, such as iron-gratings, and other relics worthy of the 
habitation of Giant Despair. 

Next morning, we were favoured with a brilliant sky and cool 
breeze, and I took the top of the coach for a drive across the 
country, through Westmoreland, into Yorkshire. A sweet odour 
of hay-making filled the air as we started ; and soon we had fine 
views of Brougham-hall, and castle, with a small adjoining park. 


302 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


A more interesting object to me was a small column, by the 
roadside, celebrated by Wordsworth, called the Countess of Pem- 
broke’s Pillar. It was erected in the evil days of Cromwell, not 
to celebrate a battle, or a crime, but as a monument of love. On 
that spot, in her better days, the Lady Anne Clifford had parted, 
for the last time, with her beloved mother, the Countess Dowager 
of Pembroke, and she therefore caused this stone to be set as a 
memorial, and inscribed accordingly. But she did yet more, for 
hard by is a stone table, on which the anniversary of that part- 
ing is annually celebrated by a dole of bread to the poor of the 
parish of Brougham, to pay for which she left the annual sum of 
four pounds to the church forever. This is giving a stone to 
those who ask bread , in an orthodox way. The inscription ends 
with Lam Deo ; and my heart responded in the manner which 
Wordsworth suggests. “Many a stranger,” he says, “though 
no clerk, has responded Amen, as he passed by.” Our drive con- 
tinued a pleasant one till we came to Appleby, an interesting old 
town, through which runs the river Eden. In its church are 
monuments of the Lady Anne Clifford and her mother. At 
Brough, we came to an old castle, erected before the Conquest. 
Its church has a pulpit, hewn of a single stone ; and they tell a 
good story of its bells. A worthy drover of the adjoining moors, 
once brought a fine lot of cattle to market, promising to make 
them bellow all together, and to be heard from Brough to 
Appleby. Accordingly with the money they sold for, he gave 
the parish a peal of bells, which constantly fulfils his vow. He 
deserves to be imitated by richer men. At Brough the coach 
left me, and I took a post-chaise over the dreary region of Stain- 
muir ; dreary, just then, but not so in the sporting-season, when 
the moor is alive with hunters and fowlers. At Bowes, again, 
emerging from the moorlands, we came to the remains of a cas- 
tle, and to the less interesting relics of a school, which had dis- 
appeared under the influence of a general conviction, that it was 
the original “ Dotheboys Hall.” A dull place is Bowes ; but 
striking over a rugged country, northward, I came soon into the 
charming valley of the Tees, and so arrived at the secluded church 
and parsonage of Romaldkirk, on a visit to a clergyman, who bear- 
ing my maternal name, and deriving from the same lineage, in 
times long past, yet claimed me as a relative, and welcomed me 
as a brother. I found a missionary from India, addressing a few of 
his parishioners, in an adjoining school-house, and there I first 
saw my hospitable friend, and joined with him in the solemnities 


RICHMOND. 


303 


of a missionary meeting, among a few of the neighbouring peasan- 
try. With this estimable clergyman, and his family, I tarried till 
the third day, enjoying greatly their attentive hospitalities, and 
trying to catch trout in the T) e es. The very sound of this rush- 
ing river recalled the story of Rokeby, and amid its overhanging 
foliage, I almost fancied I could see skulking the pirate-figure of 
Bertram Risingham. 

I was not allowed to leave this happy roof unattended. The 
eldest son of the family, a young Cantab, took me more than 
twenty miles, to Richmond, through a most romantic country, 
allowing me to visit the ruins, near Rokeby, and to stop at many 
interesting spots. We journeyed through Barnard Castle, and by 
Egglestone Abbey, and met with several adventures in our 
“ search of the picturesque,” but at last emerged into the surpris- 
ing scenery of Richmond, which I found beautiful beyond all 
that its name implies, and not unworthy of sharing it with its 
southern namesake, on the Thames. It is the older of the two, 
and is remarkable for something more than beauty. It has 
a touch of grandeur about it, and the ruins of its old historic 
castle, on the banks of the Swale, full of traditions of feudal 
sovereignty, and still massive and venerable in appearance, give 
an imposing air of majesty to the town. The aspect of the val- 
ley of the Swale is almost American, in its wildness, in many 
parts, and I keenly relished even my railway journey through 
a region so inviting to delay. I made my way to Leeds, where, 
amid smoke, and much that is disagreeable, stands the interesting 
Church of St. Mary’s, lately renewed and beautified by its faith- 
ful vicar, Dr. Hook. I had barely time to visit this sacred place, 
and contenting myself with having sighted Kirkstall Abbey, in 
the vale of Aire, I continued my journey to my first English 
home, in Warwickshire. The glimpses of Derbyshire sceneiy 
which I enjoyed, in my rapid journey, were full of beauty : and 
the mishap of losing a trunk, gave me the opportunity of putting 
to the test the fidelity of the English railway system. As soon 
as I discovered that some blunder had been committed, I inform- 
ed the guard, and at the first station, telegraphic messages were 
despatched, and in a short time my trunk followed me to the par- 
sonage, where I passed the Sunday with my friend. 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 


Covoper — Greenwich . 

More than once have I betrayed, in the course of my narra- 
tive, a strong affection for the name and memory of Cowper. 
To his poetry and letters, I was introduced in early childhood, 
by the admiring terms in which a beloved parent often quoted 
and criticised them ; and no subsequent familiarity with them has, 
in the least, impaired my relish for their peculiar charms. I re- 
gard him as the regenerator of English poetry, and as the morn- 
ing-star of all that truly illustrates the nineteenth century. A 
gentle but powerful satirist of the evils of his own times, he 
was a noble agent in the hand of God, for removing them, and 
making way for a great restoration. Without dreaming of his 
mission, he was a prime mover in the great action which has 
thrown off the lethargy of Hanoverianism, and awakened the 
Church of England to world-wide enterprises of good ; and 
though the injudicious counsels of good John Newton gave a turn 
to his piety, which may well be deplored in its consequences upon 
himself, it is ground for rejoicing that the influences of the Church 
upon his own good taste, were strong enough to rescue his con- 
tributions to literature from the degrading effects of religious 
enthusiasm. If any one will take the trouble to compare “ the 
Task ” with such a production as Pollok’s “ Course of time,” he 
will be struck with the force of my remark, for there the same 
enthusiasm exibits itself as developed by sectarianism. I was 
surprised to find how many places in England were fraught with 
recollections of this retired and sedentary poet. A distant view 
of St. Alban’s, the banks of the Ouse, the churchyard of St. 
Margaret’s, and the school- room, at Westminster, the gardens of 
the Temple, and the little village of St. Neot’s all recalled him to 


AN l'l-SNOBBERY. 


305 


mind, in his various moods, of suffering and dejection. Even the 
ruins of Netley Abbey revived his memory, for there he seems to 
have been filled with novel emotions, as an unwonted tourist, 
with whom romantic scenes were far from familiar. The oppo- 
site pole of poetic association became electric in Cheapside, where 
so many John Gilpins still keep shop, if they do not “ride 
abroad.” But I frequently passed, on the railway, a village in 
Hertfordshire, which is invested with memories of a more elevat- 
ed and affecting character. It was not only the birth-place of 
the poet, (as well as of Bishop Ken,) but its church-tower is that 
from which he heard the bell tolled on the burial-day of his 
mother. Its parsonage was the scene of all those maternal ten- 
dernesses, which he has so touchingly celebrated ; and who that 
has shared the love of a Christian mother, can fail to reverence 
the bard, who has so inimitably enshrined, in poetry, the best 
and holiest instincts of the human heart, as exhibited in the mu- 
tual loves of the mother and her son ? I could not leave 
England without first paying a pilgrimage to those scenes of his 
maturer life, which have become classic from their frequent men- 
tion in his poems. 

As I was taking my ticket for a second-class passage to the 
nearest point on the railway to Olney, I happened to meet a 
gentleman who had just bought his, and with whom I had the 
pleasure of some acquaintance. I\n owing him to be connected, 
by marriage and position, with some of the most aristocratic 
families in the kingdom, I very naturally said to him — “ I’m 
going the same way with you, but shall lose the pleasure of your 
company, for I’ve only a second-class ticket.” I was amused with 
his answer: — “Yes, for I’ve only a third - class ticket.” He 
briefly explained that he was forced to economize, and that, 
although he did not like it, the inconvenience of a seat among a 
low-class of people, for a short time, was not so intolerable as a 
collapsed purse, “especially” he added, “as I am thus enabled 
to travel in the first-class carriages when I travel with my wife.” 
Such is the independence as to action, and the freedom as to con- 
fession of economy, which characterize a well-bred man, whose 
position in society is settled ; and I could not but think how 
snobbish, in the contrast, is the conduct of many of my own 
countrymen, who, if they ever use prudence, in their expenses, 
are afraid to have it known. An aristocracy of money is not 
only contemptible in itself, but it curses a land with a universal 
shame of seeming prudent. It makes the dollared upstart fancy 


806 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


himself a gentleman, while the true gentleman is degrade in his 
own eyes, as well as in the estimation of the vulgar, by the fact, 
that his house is small, his furniture plain, and his table frugal. 
Hence so much upholdenj in America ; so much hotel-life ; and 
such a contempt for quiet respectability. 

This anecdote is not out of place in a chapter devoted to 
Cowper. The poet was a man of gentle blood, and, in every 
sense of the word, a gentleman. Many an English nobleman is 
vastly inferior to him in point of extraction. He was descended 
from the blood-royal of Henry Third, and in divers ways was 
allied to the old aristocracy of England. He used to be visited 
at Olney, by persons of quality, in their chariots; and titled 
ladies were glad to accept his hospitalities. But his home at Ol- 
ney, where he lived for years, was one of the humblest in the 
place, and even his darling residence, at Weston, was such a dwel- 
ling as most country-parsons would consider barely comfortable. 
Now, I do not mean to say that John Bull prefers such an 
establishment for a gentlemen’s habitation ; but I do mean that 
nobody in England would be so insane as to think less of a 
gentleman, for living thus humbly, especially if he lived so from 
principle. 

As I came to Newport-Pagnel, a respectable elderly person 
drove by, in an open carriag^ whom the whip pointed out to me 
as Mr. Bull ; the son of Cowper’s old friend, whom he delighted 
to call his dear Taurus. Having a few minutes to spare in the 
place, and a proper introduction, I called at his house, and was glad 
to be shown a portrait of the venerable personage himself — the 
“smoke-inhaling Bull” of the Letters. A lady of the family 
politely gave me all needed directions, but assured me I should 
be greatly disappointed in Olney, where “ there was nothing to 
see but old houses, and a general aspect of decay.” I said — ‘ Yes, 
but the house is there — and the summer-house — and the spire — 
and the bridge t* I was answered that these were yet remaining, 
though somewhat the worse for wear and weather ; and so, hav- 
ing succeeded in hiring a horse, off I went, alone. As I ap- 
proached the neighbourhood of Olney, the first truly Cowperisk 
sight that struck me — and I had never seen such a sight before 
in my life — was a living illustration of his lines : — 

“Yon cottager that weaves at her own door, 

Pillow and bobbins, all her little store !” 

She little knew how much pleasure the sight of her gave lj a 


cowper’s summer-house. 


307 


passing stranger, with whom her art had been rendered poeti- 
cally beautiful, by the charms of Cowper’s verse. This is, in 
fact, the secret of his spell as a poet, the power of investing even 
homely things, in real life, with a certain fascinating attractive- 
ness. He avoids the romantic and the poetical, in choosing his 
themes ; but he elevates what is common to a dignity and beauty 
unknown before. He is the most English of English bards, and I 
love him for teaching me to see a something even in the English 
poor, which makes them, to me, vastly more interesting than the 
romantic peasantry of Italy. True, the latter tread the vintage, 
and the other only stack the com ; but the English cottage has 
the Bible in it, and its children learn the Ten Commandments, 
and also learn that “ cleanliness is next to godliness while in 
Italy, among fleas and other vermin, the idle parents sit lazily in 
the sun, and the children run after the traveller’s coach-wheel, 
lying while they beg, and showing by their religious vocabulary, 
that Bacchus and Maria are confounded in their imagination as 
saints of the same calendar. 

At length I saw the spire of Olney, and soon I crossed the 
bridge, over whose “wearisome, but needful length,” used to 
come the news from London, to solace Cowper’s winter evenings. 
I was not long in finding the poet’s most unpoetical home, now 
occupied by a petty shop-keeper, who has turned his parlour into 
a stall. Here he lived, however, and here he sang : here, mother- 
ly Mrs. Unwin made tea for him, and Lady Austen gave him 
“ the sofa” for his “ Task.” Under these stairs once lodged Puss, 
Tiney, and Bess ; those happy hares which, alone of their kind, 
have had a local habitation , and will always have a name. In the 
garden, I saw where the cucumber-vine used to grow, and where 
Puss used to ruminate beneath its leaves, like Jonah under his 
gourd. An apple.-tree was pointed out to me as “ set by Mr. 
Cowper’s own hands.” The garden has been pieced off, and to 
see the “ summer-house,” I was forced to enter, by a neighbour’s 
leave, another enclosure. Here is the little nestling-place of 
Cowper’s poesy — the retreat where his Egeria came to him. In 
the fence, is still the wicket he made, to let him into the parson- 
age-grounds, when*. Newton was his confessor. ‘Here, then,’ I 
said, ‘ one may fancy the lily and the rose, growing in rivalry ; 
and another rose just washed in a shower; and the sound of the 
ckurch-going bell, and a thousand other minute matters in them- 
selves, all taking their place in the poetic magazine of Cowper, 
and so coming into verse, through his brain, as the mulberry leaf 


£08 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


becomes silk, by another process of spinning.’ It was a small 
field for such a harvest, and yet “ the Task” grew here. 

And now, another mile brought me to the more agreeable 
Weston-Under wood, the resort of all his walking days at 
Olney, and the dear retreat of his later life ; the dearer, because 
bestowed by the lovely Lady Hesketh. This is, indeed, a resi- 
dence worthy of a poet, and though all who once rendered it so 
charming to Cowper haye passed away, I was agreeably surpris- 
ed to find no important feature changed. A painful identity be- 
longs to it : you recognize, at every step, the fidelity of the poet’s 
descriptive powers, and it seems impossible that he who has made 
the scene part of himself, has been for half a century in his 
grave, while all this survives. You enter the desolate park of 
the Throckmortons, and there is “the alcove,” with its com- 
manding view, so dear to the poet’s eye, and Olney spire in the dis- 
tance. You pass into “ the Wilderness,” now a wilderness 
indeed, for it is neglected and overgrown. Here are a couple of 
urns, now green with moss, and lovingly clasped by ivy, but each 
marked with familiar names, and graced by Cowper’s playful 
verse. The one adorns the grave of “ Neptune,” Sir John Throck- 
morton’s pointer; the other is the monument of “Fop,” his 
lady’s favourite spaniel. I hailed this memorial of “ Lady 
Frog’s” pet; but was far more moved to descry, before long, at 
the end of a flowery alley, the antique bust of Homer, which 
Cowper so greatly valued, and to which he gave a Greek inscrip 
tion, which Hayley was proud to do into English : — 

“ The sculptor? Nameless though once dear to fame ; 

But this man bears an everlasting name.” 

Here, then, that “ stricken deer that left the herd,” was led to 
a sweet covert at last, and went in and out, and found pasture, 
under the guidance of one “ who had himself been hurt by the 
archers.” With what enchantment these haunts of hallowed 
genius inspired me ! And yet never felt I so melancholy before. 
The utter loneliness of the scene ; the fact that they who had 
bestowed its charm, were all,- long ago, dead ; and then that 
painful reality — everything else there, as it should be ; the Task, 
no poem, but a verity, and before my eyes ; but Cowper, Hayley, 
Austen, Hesketh, all gone forever ; these thoughts were oppres- 
sive. I sat down, and almost wept, as I repeated the names of 
those who were so “ lovely and pleasant in their lives,” and who 
now are undivided in. death ! It was an hour of deeper feeling 


THE poet’s farewell. 309 

than I had realized before, at any shrine of departed genius, in 
England. 

I went to the house, and rejoiced in the comfort it must have 
afforded Cowper, in his latter days. It is neat and comfortable, 
and the village is a pretty one, trim and thrifty in its look, and 
sufficiently poetical. It has “ an air of snug concealment,” which 
must have been most congenial to its gifted inhabitant, and it 
was not unsuited to his fondness for receiving his friends as 
guests. I went into the poet’s chamber, and also into that which 
Lady Hesketh used to occupy. In the former, there is a sad 
autograph of the poet, in lead-pencil, behind a window-shutter. 
The window had been walled up, and only lately re-opened, 
when the pencilling was found. It is one of the poet’s last 
performances — an adieu to Weston, written there, as he left it 
forever : — 

“ Farewell dear scenes forever closed to me, 

O for what sorrows must I now exchangeye!” 

No wonder he lamented a departure from such a retreat, into 
nearer proximity to the bad world. Walking in the park, 
beneath its avenue of ancient limes, I envied the nibbling flocks 
that were straying about, and the cattle that were reclining in 
their shade. So peaceful ! If life were given us for ignoble 
devotion to self, I know of nothing within reach of a clergy- 
man’s humble fortune to which I should more ardently aspire, 
than such an abode as Weston, where a golden mean between 
what is common and what is poetical in scenery, and situation, 
still offers every inducement to a man of taste to settle down, 
and live contentedly; or, like Walton, “to serve God, and go a 
fishing.” 

On returning to London, I was rejoiced to meet an old and in- 
timate friend, from America, whose genius has given him distinc- 
tion, at home and abroad — Mr. Huntington, the artist. With 
him I, once more, visited the Crystal Palace, and enjoyed the 
benefit of his criticisms in surveying the works of art, there dis- 
played. We were interested to observe a constant group of admir- 
ing spectators hanging around the Greek Slave, of our country- 
man, Mr. Powers. Other nude figures, although many of them 
were far better calculated to appeal to coarse curiosity, were 
comparatively neglected, so that we could not but consider the 
amount of interest which this work secured, a proof of some- 
thing superior, in its character. I own that, for ray own part, I 


310 


IMPRESSION'S OF ENGLAND. 


do not like it. The subject is a sensual one, and does not appeal 
to any lofty sentiment. Beauty in chains, and exposed in the 
shambles, is a loathesome idea, at best. 

I went with Mr. Huntington to the rooms of the British Insti- 
tution, in Pall-Mall, where is a fine collection of paintings, by 
British and foreign masters. It was a great advantage to me to 
be prepared by the hints of so eminent an artist, for my continen- 
tal tour, and often, in the galleries of Italy, I had occasion to 
thank my friend for enabling me to appreciate many things which 
would, otherwise, have escaped me. At the exhibition of water- 
coloured paintings, I was astonished, by the rich collection, and 
the exceeding beauty of many of the pictures. The fruit, and 
flower pieces, of Hunt, were almost miracles. He paints a bird’s 
nest, with the eggs, and every straw, so perfect, that the bird 
would infallibly attempt to sit in it, and he contrives to bestow it 
in a hedge of hawthorn, so green and white, and so entirely natu- 
ral, that you would not think of taking the nest, without making 
up your mind to be sorely scratched. It would make May- 
morning of a winter-day, to have a few such paintings to look at, 
and no one who loves nature could ever be tired of them. 

The weather was as hot, at this time, in London, as it is ordi- 
narily, at the same season, in Baltimore or New-York. It was 
the middle of August, and the moon being near the full, the 
nights were very beautiful ; and I observed it the more, because 
neither sun nor moon have much credit for making London at- 
tractive. Late at night, I could see the Wellington statue almost 
as distinctly from the Marble arch, as at Hy de-park corner, and 
the scenery of the Park, by moonlight, was enchanting. When 
shall we have such parks in all our large towns ? 

Next day, with Huntington, and Gray, both of our National 
Academy, I went out to Greenwich Hospital, to survey the 
place, and to enjoy a parting white-bait dinner. We went down 
in a steamer, enjoying the excursion the more for our comparisons 
of all we saw with the Bay of New-York, and the Hudson. It 
was pleasant, now and then, to discern an American vessel, and 
to know her at once, by her graceful form, amid a forest of 
masts. 

Greenwich is the great outside park of London, the resort of 
thousands of her pleasure-seekers, of the humble class. The 
Koyal Observatory stands on a commanding eminence, and the 
slope of its hill towards the river, is the favourite sporting place 
of mammas and children. As a prime meridian, however, I al- 


PENSIONERS. 


311 


ways regret that it is not deposed, by the religion of England, 
which ought to take the lead in making Jerusalem the starting 
point for all Christian reckonings. The wings of the morning 
should rise every day, from the Holy Sepulchre, and there evening 
should come down to brood, with everything to make it the first, 
and the last place, in the minds and hearts of a ransomed world. 

Greenwich Hospital is, indeed, a palace of the poor. On the 
terrace, between its wings, one cannot but be impressed with a 
sense of the greatness of a nation which thus lodges the humblest 
of its worn-out defenders. The old pensioners, hobbling about, 
in their blue uniforms, and cocked-hats, move your profound re- 
spect. Their wounds, and battered visages, seem to speak of 
storm and shipwreck, and of shell and broadsides, in every cli- 
mate under heaven. They can tell wonderful things of Nelson 
and of Collingwood ; and all seem to address you, like Burns’ 
hero, with the tale, 

“ How they served out their trade 
When the Moro low was laid, 

At the sound of the drum.” 

Tn “ the Painted Hall,” which is full of pictures of naval battles, 
one sees how terribly their pensions have been earned. There, 
too, is shown the coat worn by Nelson, when he fell, and it is 
stained with his blood. It was a comfort to turn from this tem- 
ple of the Maritime Mars, to that of the Prince of Peace. The 
old sailors have a superb chapel, elaborately adorned, and fur- 
nished with an altar-piece, by West, “ the shipwreck of St. Paul.” 
From a little book which I picked up in Paris, written by a 
Frenchman, and a Romanist, I gather that the service, in such 
places, in England, is very impressive, and that the contrast, in 
France, is not in favour of the Romish religion. He describes 
the chaunting, and apparent devotion of the soldiers, as very 
striking ; and he seems to have been especially struck with their 
responses to the Ten Commandments. He adds — “ all that would 
make us laugh in France :” and he goes on to say — “ if it bo 
answered that our soldiers are at liberty to go to mass, I reply, 
that’s true ; but for all that, a young conscript, religiously edu- 
cated at home, -would be ridiculed so unsparingly for continuing in 
his pious habits, that he could not long resist the bad examples 
of his comrades.” At Greenwich, the Bible and Prayer-book 
are the constant companions of many an old salt ; and bad as all 
armies and navies must be, I could not but think that there is a 


812 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


great advantage, in the morale , of Chelsea and Greenwich, as 
compared with the Invalides. 

We adjourned to our White-bait — a fish, according to the same 
French authority, most delicate and delicious, and to be eaten 
only at Greenwich, because it is necessary to transfer them, in- 
stantly, from the water to the frying-pan, and thence to the plate, 
and because they are fished only in the Thames. I fully agree 
with Monsieur, as to the attractions of the plat , especially when 
enjoyed in good company. The dinner ended, my friends accom- 
panied me to the Southwark station, at London, where I had all 
things in readiness for a start : and bidding them a warm fare- 
well, I reached Dover in a few hours, and soon embarked for 
Ostend. The sea was calm, and heaving in long, broad, glitter- 
ing swells ; and as the chalky cliffs of Dover, gleaming in the 
cloudless moonlight, gradually sank in the distance, I felt that no 
native Briton ever waved a more affectionate salute to the bright 
isle, than that with which I said good-night to Albion. 


s' 

CHAPTER XXXV 


Return — Conclusion . 

It was four months later than the incidents of my last chapter, 
when after a tour on the Continent, I found myself safely landed 
at Dover, in the gray dawn of a winter’s morning. I had left 
Paris, in all the frightful confusion consequent upon the coup 
cCetat of Louis Napoleon. In touching, once more, the free and 
happy soil of England, if I could not say — “ This is my own, 
my native land,” I could yet feel that it was the sacred land of 
my religion, of my parentage, and of my mother tongue. I was, 
once more, at home, and ceased to feel myself a foreigner, as I 
had done in France and Italy. How good and honest, sounded 
again in my ears, the language of Englishmen ! As “ bearer of 
despatches” from Paris, to our ambassador at London, I was 
landed with the advantage of precedence, and very rapidly pass- 
ed through the custom-house. The state of things in France, 
and the feverish anxiety, in England, to learn the changes of 
every hour, invested my trifling diplomatic dignity with a 
momentary importance, strikingly diverse from its insignificance 
at other times : and I was amused to see how much curiosity was 
felt by the officials as to the mighty communications which might 
be going up to London in my portmanteau. Even an old salt, 
as I stepped ashore, could not forbear accosting me with — “ Any 
news this morning, yer honour 1” ‘ Bad news,’ said 1 , 1 the F rench- 
men are going to have a bloody day of it ; be thankful you are 
an Englishman.’ “ So I am, your honour,” was his hearty, and 
most honest reply. 

I had been travelling in Southern Europe, where, to borrow a 
thought of Dr. Arnold’s, no one can be sure that anything is 

14 


314 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


real, which he seems to see: where Savans are not scholars — - 
where captains are not soldiers — nor judges lawyers — where 
noblemen are not men of honour — where priests are not pure — • 
nor wives and matrons chaste. I was, again, in the land of facts, 
a land deeply involved, indeed, in the sins and miseries of a fal- 
len world ; but still a land, where, for centuries, everything has 
been steadily advancing towards a high realization of human 
capabilities, alike in the physical, and mental, and moral of man’s 
nature. I was once more in a land where it is base to lie ; where 
domestic purity and piety find their noblest illustrations, whether 
in palaces or cottages ; and where not even luxury and pride have 
been able to vitiate the general conviction of all classes, that 
righteousness alone exalteth a nation, and that sin is a reproach 
to any people. 

On arriving in London, my very first employment was to visit 
the tomb of the holy Bishop Andrewes, at St. Mary’s, Southwark. 
The prelate is represented, at full length, stretched upon his 
sepulchre, and right dear it was, after long tarrying amid the 
monuments of popes and cardinals, to behold, once more, that of 
an honest and true man, and a saint of God, who, in his day 
and generation, was “ a burning and a shining light.” The tomb 
of the exemplary and amiable poet Gower, is also in this Church, 
and has often been described. 

Attending Evening Service at Westminster Abbey, on the fol- 
lowing Sunday, I was so much struck with the effect produced 
by the light of candles, in the choir, that it seemed to me, I had 
never before fully felt the wonderful impressiveness of that 
Church, nor even of the church service. The surpliced singers, 
ranged in their stalls — the many faces of the worshippers — and 
the lofty arches of the sombre architecture received a new aspect, 
from the mingled light and shade, and the tones of worship were 
imbued, by association, with something strange and solemn. 
Deep under the vaultings lay the shadows, and here and there 
shone out a marble figure, or glimmered a clustered column. 
When the organ sent its tremulous tide far down the nave, it 
seemed to come back in echoes, like the waves of the sea — the 
more effective, because of the distance through which it had 
stretched and rolled the surge of sound ; and when the respon- 
sive^ Amens rose, one after the other, from the voices of the 
singers, plaintively interrupting the petitions, and marking the 
impressive stillness of the intervals between, which were filled 
only with the low monotone of prayer, then I felt how amiable 


ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S. 


315 


are the temples of the Lord of Hosts, and how fair a resemblance 
of that temple not made with hands, where they rest not, day 
nor night, from their hymns, and responsive praises. By the 
sides of the altar flared two immense wax lights, giving a fine 
effect to the sanctuary. After the Second Lesson, the preacher, 

Canon C , ascended the pulpit, in his surplice, and preached 

the sermon ; after which, the Evening Prayer continued, as after 
a baptism, the choir taking up the Nunc dimittis, followed by the 
creed, the collects, the anthem, and the prayers, while the organ 
thundered through the lengths and heights of the abbey. I join- 
ed the throng which passed down the nave, and looking back 
again and again, I received such powerful impressions of the sub- 
limity of the place, as had been wholly wanting to the effect by 
daylight, as experienced on former occasions. One parting look 
through the western door, through the dimly illuminated per- 
spective, and then I turned slowly and thoughtfully away. On 
the preceding Sunday, I had left the cathedral service, at Rouen, 
in circumstances precisely similar, and my mind naturally fell 
into a comparative train of thought. There was .a great simi- 
larity in the effects produced on the senses by the two services. 
A stranger to the Latin and English languages, would have failed 
to note any marked difference between them. He would have 
recognized the Catholic unities of the two rites, and would have 
failed to observe their diversities, papal and reformed. The 
French sermon had been vastly better than the English one : the 
former was preached by an orator, the latter by a spiritless and 
formal favourite of Lord John Russell. Yet, between the two 
solemnities, in their entire effect, the disparity was greatly in 
favour of the English service, which was audibly and reverently 
performed, while the other was mumbled, and not understood by 
the congregation. I felt that the Church of England was strong, 
if compared with that of France, in her heritage of Catholic 
and Apostolic truth, as distinguished from the systematic false- 
hoods, which have made the religion of the other, a mere fable, 
in the general estimation of the French people. 

At a later hour, the same evening, it was my lot to preach in 
St. Bartholomew’s, Moor-lane, in the pulpit once filled by the 
worthy Archbishop Sharpe. The incumbent of this Church had 
lately discovered at Sion College a collection of papers and 
books once belonging to the saintly Bishop Wilson; and he 
placed in my hands, for that evening, the original Sacra Privata 
of that holy and venerable prelate. T fnnld not but think how 


318 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


much we may owe it to his prayers, that the Church of England 
is now what she is, as compared with what she was in his day ; 
and, in preaching, I took great delight in paying a parting 
tribute to that Church, as compared with the churches of the 
continent. 

I am convinced that the debt which England and the world 
owe to the Anglican Reformers of the sixteenth century, lias 
never been properly appreciated. Like the air which we breathe, 
but do not perceive, the spirit with which they have invested 
the religion of England, is that of life and health. They banish- 
ed nothing but the fogs and noxious exhalations of the middle 
ages ; and, as the result, we find England hale and hearty, and 
bearing more fruit in her age, while the churches which allowed 
the Tridentine vapours to become their atmosphere, are perishing 
in the agues and fevers of a long and ghastly decline. Look at 
Spain and Italy ! 

And I cannot forbear, in conclusion, to remark, that when 
American travellers go to England, and copy the false statistics 
of some infidel almanac, to justify their railings against the 
National Church, they are about as wise as John Bull is, when 
he takes the statistics of our (immigrant) pauperism and crime, as 
a test of the true state of American society. It is true that 
there are great abuses connected with the establishment ; and it 
is also true that they are deplored by no class of Englishmen, 
half so much as they are by the true churchman. If the Church 
could be left to herself, they would be immediately reformed ; but 
the very creatures who rail at her, because of them, are they 
who refuse to give her the freedom which she claims, and who do 
the most to enslave her to the State power. I am no friend to 
that power in the Church of God ; but they who prate against 
the church, because of her misfortunes, deserve the rebuke of all 
thinking men, whose knowledge of history, and of the existing 
state of the world, enables them to compare what has been done 
for England, by that church, even in her fetters, with what all 
other religions put together have done for the residue of the world. 
When we reflect upon the three great achievements of that Church 
for English liberty — the Reformation, the Restoration of the 
Constitution and Monarchy, and the repudiation of the Popish 
Stuarts, we may well aflord to laugh at such sneers as a Macau- 
lay endeavours to raise against her, on the ground of blemishes 
with which his own reckless and treacherous political allies have 
deformed and afflicted her. And when we attempt to estimate 


DISSENTERS. 


317 


the blessings she has diffused through the whole Anglo-Saxon peo- 
ple, and by them through the world, who can refrain from blessing 
the dear Church which has placed the English Bible in every cot- 
tage, and which, for three centuries, has read the Ten Command- 
ments, every Lord’s day, in the ears of millions of the people? It 
is only when we think of what that Church has done, in spite of 
the golden chains which fetter her, and in spite of the political 
miscreants who have always hung like hounds upon her heels 
and hands, that we can rightly estimate her strong vitality, and 
her vast beneficence. 

And let it be remembered, too, that all that is good among Eng- 
lish dissenters, is sucked from the Church, as the parasite derives its 
nourishment from the oak. The dissenters are mainly the small- 
tradesmen of England, a people intelligent enough to perceive the 
faults of their hereditary religion, but not generally enlightened 
enough to know its value and its services to themselves. They 
are like the Dutch boors, who thought the sun did no good 
among the Flemings, because they saw it so seldom, and who 
concluded that daylight came from the clouds, which were 
always visible. Whoever will take the pains to contrast the dis- 
senters of England with those of Germany, will learn how much 
even they derive from the Church, against which they so igno- 
rantly rail. 

I desire to speak with great respect of many of the dissenters 
of England, who, like their estimable Doddridge, are such by the 
force of circumstances only, while they love and revere the Church 
of the nation ; but I have known even American Presbyterians to 
experience the greatest revulsion of feeling against the mass of 
English dissenters, after actual contact with their coarse and 
semi-political religionism. I was not less surprised than gratified, 
moreover, to observe very lately, in a widely circulated American 
newspaper, edited by eminent Presbyterians, a full vindication of 
the Church of England from the odious and false views current 
among us in America, with respect to the system of tithes. The 
writer was himself an English or Irish dissenter, and he frankly 
asserted the fact, that in paying his tithes, he suffered no wrong, 
and contributed nothing to the establishment, which did not be- 
long to her. “ In short,” said he, “ the Church owns one-tentli 
of my rent, and I am quite as willing to pay it to her, as to pay 
the nine-tenths to my other landlord.” The nine-tenths might 
go to a popish priest ; but does he who pays it contribute to up- 


318 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


hold Popery ? No more than one who hires his house of a play- 
actor, supports the stage. 

But although the decline of dissent, in England, is universally 
admitted, it is generally imagined that Popery is growing.. So it 
is if the immigration from Ireland, of thousands of navvies , who 
have built Romish chapels and convents, out of their earnings 
on the railways, be the basis of the remark. But nothing was 
ever more over-rated than the late Apostacy, which is the fruit 
of a mere personal influence, over a few young men at Oxford, 
gained by one brilliant sophist, and perniciously directed by him 
towards ultramontane Romanism. It has spent itself already in 
a spasmodic revolt against common sense, which is breeding a re- 
action towards rationalism: but the Church of England is as 
much in danger from Irvingism as from Newmanism; and Wes- 
leyanism was vastly more energetic against her than either. The 
chagrin and disappointment of Mr. Newman himself is most appa- 
rent. After numbering the “ educated men ” whom he had in- 
volved in his own downfall as a hundred , he confesses that their 
defection from the Church has scarcely been felt by her. “ The 
huge creature from which they went forth,” he says, “ showed no 
consciousness of its loss, but shook itself, \ and went about its work as 
of old time.” Yes, but with a newer and mightier energy than ever 
before, and that in both hemispheres. The unhappy man seems 
to have imagined that by getting into a balloon, he could kick the 
earth from its orbit : but the planet still revolves around the sun, 
while he dangles in the air, lost in the brilliant clouds of his own 
imaginations, and fancying his petty elevation as sublime as her 
pathway through the skies. 

In the same manner, the Dublin reviewers are continually de- 
ploring their powerless expenditure of vast resources against the 
religion of England, which stands in its fortress of Scriptural 
truth, more impregnable than Gibraltar. Let the reader reflect, 
for a minute, on the essential characteristic of the Anglican Re- 
formation, as it began under Wy cliff, in a translation of the Scrip- 
tures, and then weigh the importance of the following citation 
from a Romish peiiodical. 

“ Who will not say,” says the Dublin Review , “ that the un- 
common beauty and marvellous English of the Bible is not one 
of the great strongholds of heresy in this country. It lives on 
the ear like a music that can never be forgotten, like the sound 
of the church-bell, which the convert hardly knows how he can forego. 
Its felicities often seem to be almost things rather than mere 


ENGLISH BIBLE. 


319 


words. It. is part of the national mind, and the anchor of 
national seriousness. The memory of the dead passes into it. 
The potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. 
The power of all the gifts and trials of a man is hidden beneath 
its words. It is the representative of his best moments, and all 
that there has been about him of soft, and gentle, and pure, and 
penitent, and good, speaks to him forever out of the English 
Bible. It is his sacred thing, which doubt has never dimmed, 
and controversy never soiled. In the length and breadth of the 
land, there is not a Protestant with one spark of righteousness 
about him, whose spiritual biography is not in his Saxon Bible.” 

Action and reaction are always equal ; and it is my own 
opinion that the hand of God is visible in the permission of the 
late scandals, and their sequel will demonstrate that He has 
been infusing into modern Romanism a spirit which will blow it 
to atoms. Among the beardless boys, who have swelled the 
numerical strength of the apostacy, there are some prodigals 
who will yet come to themselves, and remember their father’s 
house with penitent tears : and as to their leaders, the ex- Jesuit 
Steinmetz in his narrative of a residence at Stoneyhurst, intro- 
duces the following striking view of the case, which sustains 
my own impressions. “ Though the men of Rome,” he says, 
“ exult in this reaction (as they call it) which is making Oscott 
a refugium peccatorum, perhaps from among the very men whose 
captive chains clank in their triumphal thanksgiving, there will 
be shot the lethalis arundo , the deadly arrow that will pierce 
and cling to the side of their mother church in the appointed 
time. It is not children that they are receiving; but full- 
grown men, accustomed most pertinaciously to think for them- 
selves. They began with being reformers, and it must be con- 
fessed with some of the boldness of reformers. Will they be 
content to change their skins? To become sheep, from having 
been, as it were, wolves? To smother the cunning and the 
clever thought, which seems so flattering to one’s own vanity, 
in the cold, dead ashes of papal infallibility? We shall see .” 
This is reasonable, and consoling. We may not live to see 
it; but a rebellion against Truth must have its rebound, and 
Church and State will be stronger for such rebellions in the 
end. 

If then, the decline of English arts and arms be near, of 
which I am by no means as confident as some, it will be a very 
slow decline, and coincident with a new glory, and a brighter 


320 


IMPRESSIONS OF ENGLAND. 


one, than England yet has known. Instead of armies, she is now 
sending forth soldiers of the Prince of Peace. She has discover- 
ed that it is cheaper and wiser to sustain missionaries than bayo- 
nets. The era of her greatest work is before her. She is to be- 
come the nursing mother of nations, and in her language, the 
sound of the Gospel is to go forth into all lands, and unto the 
end of the world. Hers is the deposit of the faith once delivered 
to the saints. The Roman Churches have divorced themselves 
from the promises, and in the Catholicity of England chiefly is 
fulfilled the promise of Christ, to be always with His own Apos- 
tolic commission, even to the end of the world. At the same 
time, there is a moral life in English society, which must long 
salt the State, and preserve it from decay. I appeal to the 
common sense of Christian men, and I ask, in what other coun- 
try under heaven is there such a mass of domestic and social 
purity ? Where else is there so large a benevolence, so mascu- 
line a religion, so enlightened a conscience, among any people ? 
England has her shame as well as her glory ; she is part and par- 
cel of a sinful world ; but her light is not hid under a bushel : 
and if the hope of the world be not in her candle, I am at a loss 
to know where to find encouragement as a Christian, that the 
Gospel is to become universal. I believe, indeed, that my own 
country is to share, with her, this magnificent career of peaceful 
conquest. We are bone of her bone, and flesh of her flesh : but 
I believe, also, that before we can heal the nations, we must first 
heal ourselves of the wretched religious anarchy which is the 
bane of our education, our society, and our National character. 

After lingering for a few days in the society of my friends, in 
London and Oxford, I was, once more, for a short time, the guest 
of the friend to whom this memorial is inscribed, and met at his 
table, again, the venerable Vicar, who was one of the first to 
welcome me to England. To part with such friends, and their 
families, perhaps forever, was only to become aware how deeply 
I had entwined with theirs, my brotherly feelings and Christian 
regards. But I had been long enough enjoying myself amid the 
scenes and friendships which even our holy religion, while it 
alone can produce them, forbids to our self-indulgence, in a world 
where every Christian is called to the work of a missionary. 
Much as I longed to mingle in the delights of an English Christ- 
mas, I felt the call of duty, and the blessedness of giving as greater 
than that of receiving. My own parishioners expected to see 
me at the altar, on the approaching feast, and my heart warmed 


RETURN HOME. 


321 


towards them, as deserving my best endeavours to gratify their 
reasonable wishes. Thanks, under God, to the good steamer 
Baltic, and its skillful commander, I escaped the perils of a win- 
try sea, and on Christmas-eve, was restored to my flock, and 
family, in Hartford. On the following day, as I celebrated the 
Holy Eucharist, I trust it was not without befitting gratitude to 
God, nor without a new and profound sense of the blessings we 
owe to him, whose Gospel is the spirit of “ peace on earth, and 
of good-will to men.” 


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